MPs Bid To Question Tycoon Over BHS Collapse

MPs investigating whether BHS's collapse will mean higher charges for thousands of UK pensions funds are to call former owner Sir Philip Green for questioning.

The 88-year-old high street retailer has gone into administration with debts of more than £1.3bn including a pension fund deficit of £571m - leaving 11,000 jobs at risk and threatening the closure of its 164 stores.

The collapse has prompted an investigation by the UK's Pensions Regulator. BHS's retirement schemes, with thousands of members, are being assessed to enter the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) - a Government-backed lifeboat funded through levies on other pension funds.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) has prompted MPs on the Commons Work and Pensions Committee to look into to what extent the cost of absorbing the £571m deficit will mean higher levies to pay towards the fund.

Frank Field MP, chair of the committee, said: "We need as a committee to look at the Pension Protection Fund and how the receipt of pension liabilities of BHS will impact on the increases in the levy that will now be placed on all other eligible employers to finance the scheme.

"We will then need to judge whether the law is strong enough to protect future pensioners' contracts in occupational schemes."

He told Sky (LSE: BSY.L - news) 's Ian King Live it was "obvious" Sir Philip would be invited to give evidence as part of the inquiry, which could take the form of a joint investigation with the Business Select Committee.

Meanwhile, Labour MP John Mann has called for Sir Philip - whose Arcadia empire includes the likes of Top Shop, Burton, and Dorothy Perkins - to pay back £400m in dividends or lose his knighthood.

He said: "There is a very simple and honourable solution to this crisis; repay the dividends, live up to the name he has chosen for his new yacht, 'Lionheart', or lose his knighthood."

BHS is continuing to trade, with no plans for immediate redundancies, amid reports that about 30 companies have expressed an interest in all or part of the business.

But tough questions are being asked about the background to the biggest retail failure since 2008, when Woolworths went under with the loss of almost 30,000 jobs.

Sir Philip was accused in the Commons of taking hundreds of millions of pounds from the high street chain and branded the "unacceptable face of capitalism" by Conservative MP Richard Fuller.

BHS was sold last year by Sir Philip's Arcadia group for £1 to little-known consortium Retail Acquisitions (RA). It went under on Monday after last-ditch talks to find a new buyer for the firm over the weekend failed, administrator Duff & Phelps said.

RA's owner Dominic Chappell said no one was to blame saying it was caused by a "combination of bad trading and not being able to raise enough money from the property portfolio".

However, speaking to the Financial Times he blamed Sir Philip for "blocking" a £60m loan from a finance group he claimed would have allowed the company to continue trading through this week.

He said: "It's not right the way it's gone. It was in Arcadia's gift that this business was carried forth."

According to the newspaper there are 50 firms interested in buying part or all of BHS, a report in the Daily Telegraph says one of them is the owner of Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

BHS, which has 164 stores, enjoyed its best day of trading this year on Monday - sales were 80% higher than figures for the same day in 2015.

Shadow business minister Angela Eagle accused Sir Philip of leaving others to plug the pensions black hole.

She (Munich: SOQ.MU - news) told MPs: "If the worst happens the liability will be covered by the pensions protection scheme and BHS staff will get only 90% of the pension they've worked so hard for and saved for. But Philip Green seems to have got much more out of BHS for himself and his family than that."

Business minister Anna Soubry said the Pensions Regulator was investigating a "number of concerns and indeed allegations (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) ".