Daily Mail city editor Alex Brummer has today penned a coruscating critique of former BHS owner Philip Green and the role of City of London legal and accounting firms in the collapse of the UK retail business in April when it was put into administration.
BHS has reported that its pension fund has a deficit of 571m sterling ($860m).
“It is now abundantly clear that Philip Green…knowingly sold BHS to an untrustworthy thrice-bankrupt…,” Brummer wrote.
The BHS collapse “…has destroyed the lives of 11,000 workers at BHS and left 21,000 members of the collapsed company’s pension scheme facing a shattered retirement.”
BHS was bought for 1 pound by Dominic Chappell and his partners in 2015. It was acquired by Green in 2000.
Among the institutions Brummer criticises are law firm Olswang, accountants Grant Thornton, BHS auditors PwC and Green’s financial adviser Goldman Sachs.
“BHS emerges as the greatest swindle of the present decade,” Brummer writes. “That is why all those involved in this messy affair must at the very minimum be driven out of finance for ever and – if found guilty of illegal acts – suitably punished.”
Brummer was writing following the publication on 25 July of a report about the inquiry into the collapse of BHS by the UK’s House of Commons’ work and pensions committee.