Events | 2010.08.13
Sir Philip Green profile
Britain\'s ninth richest person, a fixture on the London party scene, is the closest thing business has to a rock star
As he bellowed down the phone to the Guardian today it was hard not to notice lounge music tinkling in the background – the soundtrack aboard Green\'s yacht off the Italian coast where he is entertaining Naomi Campbell and Leonardo DiCaprio this week.
Green, who has enlisted his friend Kate Moss to design a range for Topshop, is the closest thing business has to a rock star. The owner of Topshop group Arcadia and department store Bhs was Britain\'s ninth richest person last year, with a personal fortune of £4.1bn. To celebrate his son\'s barmitzvah in 2005 he was reported to have spent £4m on a three-day event on the French Riviera, hiring Destiny\'s Child to perform. He spends much of his time in Monaco with his wife Tina and children Chloe and Brandon, but still manages to be a prominent fixture on the London party scene.
Born in Croydon in 1952, Green grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb. He was sent to a Jewish boarding school in Oxfordshire, but left at the age of 15 and served his apprenticeship in the fashion industry, importing jeans from the far east and opening a designer discount store off Regent Street.
His first sizeable deal was rescuing retail chain Jean Jeanie, which he sold on to Lee Cooper. But it was when he bought Bhs from Storehouse in 2000, and Arcadia two years later, that he gained real recognition. He is one of the few British retailers to break the US, with Topshop.
He achieved national notoriety after three failed attempts to buy Marks & Spencer. Paul Myners, chairman of M&S at the time of the last bid in 2004, described his victory in seeing off Green\'s advances as "a victory for polite, calm and diplomatic people against irrational, erratic, rude, crude, volatile and offensive people".
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/aug/13/sir-philip-green-profile
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