History will not view Sir Philip Green kindly, and that is right

Sir Philip Green is in the Maldives this year. Time was when he would always go to Sandy Lane on Barbados for Christmas and the New Year – and without fail he would give me a call.

Once, he rang to inquire what the weather was like in the UK. He knew, of course. Dreadful, I said. I was fully aware, too, what was coming next – how it was 30-odd degrees where he was, the sea was beautiful, everything was just great.

I guess this year he won’t be phoning. Neither, too, have I received my hamper. It’s actually been several years since I’ve had one of those. When he owned BHS, he would send round a box containing the chain’s products, with a bottle of non-BHS champagne and a handwritten note on top: “Behave”.

Green was amusing company. He could be extremely funny and sharp. Sometimes, he was threatening – he would scream that yet again I’d said he lived in a tax haven. You do, I’d say. “Yes, but that’s not why we moved there, we live in Monaco because we like it.” One of the most surreal moments was when he tried to insist that I described how he and his wife Tina owned and ran Arcadia, as “an international family investment vehicle that happens to be based overseas”.

The fact that he’d put his retail empire in her name, and he carried on managing the clothing stores while they resided in low-tax Monaco was incidental apparently – it was not what it seemed. To which the response was pull the other one – he’d structured his affairs that way for one reason only, which was to avoid tax.

To reinforce his argument he’d produce a letter, from HMRC confirming that “Philip Green paid all the tax he was required to pay in the United Kingdom”. Yes, but that makes no mention of the stonking great dividend pay-outs to Tina? “Why should it?” he’d reply, “She doesn’t live in the UK.”

The lengths he’d gone to in order to avoid tax, his brash love of bling (he once phoned me and said, “Here, do you know what that noise is?” When I asked what it was, he said, “It’s George Michael doing the soundcheck for my party and you’re not invited”), his insistence on staff sticking to non-disclosure agreements, and his refusal to meet the pension deficit after he’d sold BHS to someone who was not capable of running the business let alone paying pensioners, all made “PG” a loathed figure. He was a by-word for “greed”, indeed that was the title of a poor satirical movie that was clearly based on him.

His unpopularity was entirely deserved and self-inflicted. Was he, though, so much different from the private equity groups that own so much of our high street and other businesses? UK Plc is starved of capital investment, the private equity owners are located offshore, and yes, they pay themselves handsomely, they enjoy fabulous lifestyles, and they’re sticklers for confidentiality clauses. Based on that criteria they’re identical to Green.

Where they differ is that unlike Green they stay quiet, in the background. They don’t parade their wealth, don’t engage with the press – not in the manner Green used to – and make sure that their financial details remain secret.

Private equity houses are driven by one motive: to use cheap debt to make as high a return as possible. I will say this for Green, in all my discussions with him I never heard him utter the phrase beloved of private equity which is “exit strategy”. It’s the first thing that comes into their heads when they consider a target: if I buy it how soon can I get rid of it, at a price that produces a decent profit? Always, the talk is of how quickly I can sell it on, not here is my long-term investment plan, this is how I aim to build on it.

Green, also, was on the case. He was across everything to do with his collection of chains, working in London during the week and flying back home to Monaco at weekends. He could tell you to the minute the sales of one of his brands or an individual store compared with the exact time last year. It was impressive, but was it any good? Arguably, Green being so heavily involved was to the future detriment – he was a numbers man and a deal-maker, but far from the genius retailer he imagined himself to be.

That said, Green did not invest either, not in online at any rate, which was his biggest failing. I put that down to a generational lack of understanding, that he did not believe in internet shopping, did not foresee that one day it would make bricks and mortar redundant. At Next, Simon Wolfson did, but Wolfson is a good 15 years younger than Green and he gained a head-start by venturing into mail order. From catalogues to digital was not such a massive leap – both involved order-processing, management of supply lines, warehousing and rapid distribution.

History will not view Green kindly, and that is right. He should not, though, be regarded in isolation. There are plenty of others, equally deserving of criticism. They tend not to shout so loud, which was Green’s undoing.