http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36123444

The BHS here is open today. The one in Colchester has already gone, and is being converted into a Primark.

BHS paid more than £25m to owner in 13 months before administration | Business | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... nistration

Trebles all round!

It really is "the unacceptable face of capitalism". Philip Green takes the best part of £400m out of the business then expects the employees to rejoice when he says he'll put £80m into a pension black hole that's in debt to almost exactly the amount he took. I wouldn't want to say in public what I think of him.

Well at least he pays lots of tax in the UK... oh, wait
While I'm sure the financial crash contributed something to the pension thing, it's still something to turn a £5m surplus around when he took over into £500m+ deficit now.

See the graphic in the article linked. The pension fund survived the market crash relatively intact (was still in surplus in 2008). It's gone from that to a £200m deficit between 2009 and 2015 and from a £250m deficit to a £500M deficit in the last year. Unless BHS have suddenly had 100,00 extra staff members retire in the last 12 months, something very fishy has been going on. looks to me like they've been using the pension fund to either prop up the business directly or as a guarantee against loans they haven't paid back. both of which are, IIRC, illegal and have been since the Mirror pension scheme crash.

Sir Philip Green must repay £400m or lose knighthood, says MP | Business | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... knighthood

Pension liabilities are a set of future predictions assembled by accountants and actuaries.
The pension fund will have had an assumption about the rate of interest they were expecting on their investments (often this is 8% or more).
The claims that it was in the black were resting on that assumption and the fund was never as healthy as portrayed unless they could achieve the predicated number on a compound basis.

If a huge black hole that suddenly appears in the books for a pension scheme, it usually will have come from a downward revision of that number.

The company should probably have been wound up years ago. But the same was once true of Apple.

Hmm... know which choice I'd go for...

BHS ex-owner blames Philip Green for retail firm's collapse | Business | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... s-collapse

BHS rescue bid fails with loss of 11,000 jobs | Business | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... bs-at-risk

If this was Iceland (the country, not the shop) Green and Chappell would both be in jail.

Former BHS owner sent abusive message to chief exec after chain collapsed | Business | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -collapsed

MPs: Sir Philip Green's reputation and knighthood depend on pension offer | Business | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... sion-offer

Now there's you man you can trust.