F-B-F.org -

In June 2000, Alan Scott Whittington, from Bournemouth, was jailed for two years for stealing £2m from client accounts. In April 1999, a West End solicitor, Michael James Palmer, was jailed for three years for stealing £250,000 from the trust funds for two orphaned children. In December 1995, Graham Ford, who ran nine offices in Hastings, was imprisoned for 10 years after stealing £5m from the estates of dead clients.. There are two wildly differing views of Philip Green. Some see him as a buccaneering entrepreneur who is willing to take his chances when others demur.

Others see him as a brash, uncouth trader whose methods are somewhat less than sound

There are two wildly differing views of Philip Green. But his success in turning around the ailing Bhs – transforming a business he bought for £220m into something worth upwards of £800m in only two years – has turned many of his critics into fans.Green, who celebrated his 50th birthday this year with an extravagant bash in Cyprus, emerged in the early Eighties running a clothing chain called Jean Genie. He bought it for £65,000 and sold it for £3m, moving on to quoted clothing group Amber Day. This was a less happy experience, involving rows with shareholders and fellow directors, an unsuccessful purchase of Scottish discount chain WhatEveryoneWants and his ultimate departure. This period of his career ensures he is unlikely to float Bhs or any of his other ventures on the stock market.Green’s renaissance came in the late Nineties. He stepped into the mess created after Sears came to grief selling its businesses to Stephen Hinchliffe, the Sheffield businessman who now languishes as a guest of Her Majesty following the collapse of his Facia empire.

With the help of the Barclay brothers, Green bought Sears’ businesses cheap, and, with the profits from selling them, was ready for his next big move.For a while he stalked Marks & Spencer The City made life difficult for him and he lost his bottle. It was probably too big a deal, but it rankles and if you talk to Green today it is not long before the conversation turns to M&S and why the so-called recovery is nothing of the sort.But Green arguably got a better deal. He caught Storehouse at a weak moment and it sold him Bhs for a mere £220m. That was just a quarter of turnover, but as Green says, there were no other buyers.Green was ruthless in his cost-cutting.

He was said to have told some staff: “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.” Production was moved abroad, distribution was centralised, spare selling space was gobbled up And he was lucky. C&A decided to pull out of the UK, leaving a gap in the market that Bhs could walk into.The result; operating profits up from £12m to £100m in two years. This would imply the company is worth £1bn and Green’s managing director, Terry Green (no relation), apparently made a £800m bid for the business before resigning last week.But are these numbers what they seem? The operating margin of 11.8 per cent is a good 4 per cent better than M&S and it is hard to believe it can be sustained. As Bhs is a private company, the full accounts will not be out for ages.Green is planning his next move. But if he is to buy cheap, he presumably is going to sell Bhs for a bucketload.