Philip Green

Green was born on 15 March 1952 in Croydon, England, into a middle-class Jewish family. He was the son of Simon Green, a successful property developer and electrical goods retailer, and Alma. He has a sister, Elizabeth, five years his senior. His family moved to Hampstead Garden Suburb, a middle-class area of North London, and at the age of nine he was sent to the now-closed Jewish boarding school Carmel College in Oxfordshire.

When Green was twelve, his father died of a heart attack, and he inherited the family business. After leaving boarding school at 15 with no O-levels, Green worked for a shoe importer in East London before travelling to the US, Europe and the Far East. On his return, aged 21, he set up his first business, importing jeans from the Far East to sell on to London retailers. The business was assisted with a £20,000 loan (equivalent to £216,000 in 2014) backed by his family.

In 1979, Green bought up, at low prices, the entire stock of ten designer-label clothes retailers that had gone into receivership. He then had the newly bought clothes dry cleaned, put on hangers, and wrapped in polythene to make them look new, and bought a shop from which to sell them to the public.

Amber Day

In 1988, he became chairman and Chief Executive of a quoted company called Amber Day, a discount retailer. The shares performed well, but then suffered a series of profit downgrades and in 1992 he resigned when the company failed to meet its profit forecast.

Arcadia Group

Next, Green assisted his wife Tina Green in the purchase of the Arcadia Group, which owned High Street chains such as Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Outfit, Topshop/Topman and Wallis in 2002. The company was briefly owned by Green but sold to Tina Green within 24 hours, with Philip acting as CEO. On 30 November 2020, Arcadia Group went into administration after high street sales were adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Green and his wife Cristina Palos have two children, one of whom, Brandon, was previously in a relationship with actress Emma Watson.

Green is based at a London hotel during the week, spending the weekends with his wife and their children in an apartment in Monaco. For his 50th birthday, Green flew 200 guests in a chartered Airbus A300 to a hotel in Cyprus for a three-day toga party, where Tom Jones and Rod Stewart performed. For his 55th birthday, Green flew 100 guests 8,500 miles in two private jets to the Four Seasons at Landaagiraavaru, an eco-spa on a private island in the Maldives.

Green owns a £100 million, 90 m (300 ft) yacht named Lionheart constructed by Benetti and a £20 million Gulfstream G550 private jet. For a birthday, his wife bought him a solid gold Monopoly set, featuring his own acquisitions.

Green is inspired by Sir Charles Clore, who built the Sears plc UK retail empire from scratch in the 1950s and 1960s.

In April 1980, Green registered a philanthropic initiative, the Kahn Charitable Trust, with a vision of "putting lost smiles back on the faces of less privileged persons across the globe."

Green is a supporter of the Fashion Retail Academy and the industry charity Retail Trust. Green was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours "For services to the Retail Industry".

In May 2007, after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal, Green donated £250,000 as a monetary reward for any useful public information. He also gave the McCanns the use of his private jet to allow them to fly to Rome for a Papal visit.

In 2010, Green donated $465,000 for new beds at the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital, after his wife Tina's mother died there. He also spent more than $150,000 for an Alexander McQueen dress at Naomi Campbell's Fashion for Relief charity event. In the same year, Green donated £100,000 to the Evening Standard's Dispossessed Fund which aims to support London's poorest people.

He was reportedly the BBC's first choice to front the UK franchise of The Apprentice; however, at that time in 2004, he was too busy with Arcadia's attempted takeover of Marks & Spencer.

Two weeks prior to the 2010 general election, Green came out in support of David Cameron, George Osborne and the Conservative Party, stating that Cameron and Osborne "understand what needs to be done. They get it."

In August 2010, Green was asked by Cameron, then recently elected as Prime Minister, to carry out a review of UK government spending and procurement. Green's summary report, Efficiency Review by Sir Philip Green, published in October 2010, alleged significant failings in government procurement processes. The government published the review identifying its main finding as "the Government is failing to leverage both its credit rating and its scale". Green argued that the report gave "a fair reflection" of government waste and inefficiency in practice, for which "very poor data and process" were seen as the main causes. Cameron welcomed the report, saying "I think it's a good report, it will save a lot of money and it's important we do it."

The report examined central government's procurement practice but also noted that "the whole public sector" could potentially benefit from better centralised procurement.

Tax avoidance

Green became the target of activist group UK Uncut in November 2010 for alleged corporate tax avoidance. The group targeted Green specifically as a government advisor.

Taveta Investments, acquired by Arcadia in 2002, is registered in the name of Green's wife. As a Monaco resident, the company faces a significantly lower tax liability than if she were a UK resident. When Green paid his family £1.2 billion in 2005, it was paid for by a loan taken out by Arcadia, cutting Arcadia's corporation tax as interest charges on the loan were offset against profits.

Links to Richard Caring

In December 2014, Michelle Young accused Philip Green, Richard Caring and Simon Cowell of helping her ex-husband, businessman Scot Young, to hide assets and so avoid paying maintenance to his ex-wife and their two daughters. In February 2015, a note from HSBC bankers in Caring's files mentioned that Philip Green's wife Tina Green had been holding part of Caring's assets in cash on his behalf, prompting suspicions that Caring might have funnelled profits through Tina Green to avoid paying taxes on his assets.