A tetchy Sir Philip Green today signalled he could pledge millions of pounds so that staff of failed retailer BHS don’t lose out on their pensions.
The billionaire businessman apologised for the mess left behind after he sold the company for £1 a year before its collapse in April.
The firm has a £571 million black hole which risks shaving up to a third off the pensions of the retail chain’s 20,000 staff if no action is taken.
Sir Philip told MPs: "I want to give an assurance to the 20,000 pensioners - I'm here to sort this.”
In often testy exchanges which included Sir Philip demanding an MP stop staring at him, he insisted the matter was “resolvable” while taking responsibility for deficit which he conceded was “my fault”.
But he declined to supply full details, saying plans were imminent and “in motion”.
The pension fund has been absorbed by the Pension Protection Fund at a cost to its value of £275m. A cash injection of that value would be necessary to ensure no pensioners lose out.
There had been fears ahead of the hearing - convened jointly by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee – that the retail tycoon may not show up to supply his account of the demise of one of Britain’s best-known stores.
His eventual appearance was characterised by often fiery exchanges between the retail boss, who chairs the Arcadia Group, and MPs in which he claimed at times the committee was “pressing him for things I can’t answer”.
In one bizarre outburst, he said: "We're jumping like the Olympics .. [you've] just put the bar up to 12ft."
During the near five-hour-long hearing, Sir Philip was also quizzed on his tax affairs and insisted there was no reason he chose offshore destination Monaco to move to following a heart scare in 1998 which he revealed to the committee.
Sir Philip came in for widespread criticism following the collapse of BHS in April just a year after he sold it to former bankrupt Dominic Chappell, who had no retail experience.
Today he denied he had drained cash from the firm, contributing to its failure, and said there was “nothing more sad” than the fact BHS’s collapse has led to losses of up to 11,000 jobs.
