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Despite his humble beginnings, Sir Philip Green has emerged as a pragmatic entrepreneur, whose shrewd takeovers of British Home Stores and Topshop have crowned him king of the high street.

Early Entrepreneur
Sir Philip Green was born in Croydon, south London, in 1952. At the age of 15 he worked for a shoe importer before travelling to the US, Europe and the Far East.

On his return he set up his first business with a AED120,000 loan, importing jeans from the Far East to sell to retailers in London. As far as fashion is concerned, he’s never looked back.

The story goes that in 1979 Green bought the entire stock of 10 designer label clothes sellers, who had gone into receivership, for extremely low prices.

He then had the clothes sent to the dry cleaners, put them on hangers, wrapped them in polythene to make them look new, and sold them to the public.

It was in these early days that the seeds were sown for what is now the second-largest clothing retail empire in the UK.

Expansion, Expansion, Expansion
In the late 1990s Green hit the headlines after a number of strategic takeovers of the UK’s biggest household fashion brand names.

He bought ailing retail chain British Home Stores for AED1.2bn, just as the market had dismissed the company as a failing brand. Green put up AED300m of his own money and borrowed another AED900m to seal the deal. He completely turned the company around, rebranding it as Bhs.

In 2002, Green purchased the Arcadia Group, which owns well-known British high street chains Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Outfit, Topshop and Wallis. He recently added the Etam chain to the group.

Green paid AED5.2bn and repaid the AED4.9bn he borrowed to finance the deal in just two years, a move that stunned commentators. The Arcadia Group has been enormously profitable since, and currently has pre-tax profits of around AED2.3bn.

Green opened his first Topshop store in the US in March and merged his Bhs department store chain into the Arcadia business this year.

Celebrity hot property
Kate Moss and Green are the most high-profile celebrity designer-retail couple on the market; their wildly successful Topshop partnership started with a kiss.

In May 2006, Moss, who is also from Green’s hometown of Croydon, was among guests at a charity auction. One of the many items she had donated – a kiss – went to billionaire Green, who paid AED370,000 for the privilege. He later donated it to the person he outbid, Jemima Khan.

The kiss was a 60-second, lingering smooch, with Kate sweeping Jemima’s hair back from her face and clutching her neck. The best PR anyone could ask for.

Two weeks later, Moss bumped into Green as he was leaving a restaurant. “That was a bit of fun, wasn’t it,” Kate said. “I suppose it all depends on your idea of fun,” he replied.

One thing led to another and on April 30, 2007, Moss launched her first collection under the Topshop brand.

Green is now in talks with UK pop singer Leona Lewis to launch an ethical clothing range at Topshop.

Public Relations Master
Always quick to snap up an eye-catching photo opportunity, Green is an accomplished self-publicist and skillful at handling the prickly UK press.

Recently he spun a negative story about a dismal winter shopping season into a positive headline grabber in UK newspaper, The Times. Green allegedly gave warning that the weather could torpedo any nascent recovery on Britain’s high streets. Apparently he is wary about the outlook for consumer spending because if the winter is too warm people won’t buy his coats.

He told The Times: “We do need cold weather in winter. We need a cold snap, we need the weather to change. Every retailer I speak to, we’ve all got knitwear, we’ve all got coats in stock, because it’s supposedly winter.”

Arguably Green’s most welcomed PR opportunity came in 2006 when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.