The helping hands in Green's 'solo effort'

Published on Wednesday 16 November 2005 01:17

ON 19 October Philip Green, the retail billionaire, marked a new milestone in his amazing career when he announced that Arcadia, his Top Shop-to-Burton retail chain, had paid him a staggering one-off dividend of £1.2 billion, a sum that is more than the entire GDP of the African state of Togo and twice that of Belize.

A myth has grown up around the fabulously rich Green that his success is entirely down to his brilliance as an entrepreneur, a myth that the ebullient Green has done nothing to dispel in the numerous interviews he has given since Arcadia announced its results.

For instance, when it was pointed out that he had broken the previous record for an individual dividend held by Britain's richest man, steel-magnate Lakshmi Mittal, he told the Times: "It is nice to be a first ... Leaving a mark in anything you do is nice. I had one shop 25 years ago. I've done it on my own. It's been a solo effort."

One of the fascinating things about researching Green's life was to discover that the story was - as you might have guessed - far more complex than the "done it on my own" boast would suggest.

A host of characters were on hand to smooth the path of Green along the bumpy road from start-up retailer to multi-billionaire. And a surprising number of these were based in Scotland.

Let's begin by turning the clock back 30 years. At that time Green was struggling to establish himself in the London rag-trade. His early efforts were disappointingly unsuccessful. At one point he did not even have an office in Central London that he could use as a base. But a friend helped him out. The man in question was Gerald Weisfeld, owner of the Scottish discount clothing chain What Everyone Wants (WEW).

It is a sure sign of a good entrepreneur that, in those shaky first years, Green cut overheads to a minimum to preserve cash-flow and keep the bank at bay. In the hour of need Weisfeld offered Green the use of a desk and a telephone in his office to help him run his business on the cheap. Green took the offer up.

Weisfeld, as it turned out, had forgotten to mention the offer to the staff at his Great Titchfield Street office-warehouse in central London, colourfully called "Fash 'n' Carry"

At the Glasgow HQ of WEW that morning an anxious phone-call was put through to Vera Weisfeld, Gerald's wife and business partner. It was the London office asking what should be done with a rather arrogant young man who had turned up to claim a desk. In her no-nonsense West of Scotland style, Vera made her position clear: "Throw him out!"

It was only later that the confusion was cleared up, when Weisfeld himself called to say that Green was a friend of his and should be let in.

It was not the only time that the Weisfelds were to give Green a helping hand.

Weisfeld was an established figure in the London rag-trade and admired the young Green's never-say-die spirit. He offered Green some avuncular advice, taking him off on buying expeditions to London's Docklands, where giant warehouses held garments piled to the roof and finding the best bargains often involved climbing to the top.

Weisfeld was widely admired as a wizard at buying up fashionable clothes at rock-bottom prices. Seeing him in action, persuading the wholesalers he was doing them a favour by clearing room for the new season's fashions, gave Green a grounding in an art that he was later to make his own.

Fifteen years on, and the Weisfelds did Green their greatest service. In 1988 Green had become chairman and chief executive of a struggling clothing empire called Amber Day. Green had gambled on turning the firm around on the back of a boom in upmarket menswear. But, after some initial success, sales at his Review and Woodhouse shops began to sag alarmingly as economic storm clouds gathered.

About the same time the Weisfelds had decided to sell their thriving discount clothing business after a near-death experience aboard a DC10 in South America. They decided to devote most of their time to charity work.

What Everyone Wants had by this time grown to 37 stores and had never failed to make a profit even in recession years.

They were delighted when Green indicated he would like to buy the business for Amber Day, a deal signed, sealed and delivered in May 1990. The purchase could not have been better timed. While the high street slumped into the deep recession of 1990-92, Amber Day's profits soared, making it the best performing share of the year in 1991. All the profit had flowed from his new acquisition.

The Weisfelds had by this time fallen out with Green, when he increased prices at WEW by more than the rate of inflation. But while the Weisfelds had sold their remaining interest and moved on, most of the young executives trained by the Weisfelds had stayed.

Two of these in particular were to play their part in helping Green navigate the bumpy years of the 1990s. Both were to play a critical role in his final emergence as the great retailing billionaire of the new century.

• Top Man - How Philip Green Built his High Street Empire, by Stewart Lansley and Andy Forrester, is published in hardback by Aurum Press, priced 18.99