 |
| Dominic Chappell: ‘My conscience is very clear.’ Photograph: PA |
Dominic Chappell, the former owner of BHS, is planning to put his personal business into administration this week and is restructuring his assets, meaning he could walk away from a substantial tax bill and protect his cash from investigations into the demise of the department store chain.
Chappell has lined up David Rubin & Partners as the administrator for Swiss Rock Ltd. The firm could be appointed as early as this week.
Swiss Rock was paid at least £1.6m by BHS and its parent company as part of Chappell’s controversial acquisition of the retailer.
By putting Swiss Rock into administration, Chappell could walk away from its debts, which are thought to include a tax bill on his earnings from BHS.
Chappell’s actions will further infuriate BHS staff. The last of BHS’s 164 stores will close this weekend after the retail chain collapsed into administration in April, 13 months after it was bought by Chappell’s consortium. The demise of the retailer has led to 11,000 job losses and left a £571m pension deficit. However, Chappell’s consortium, Retail Acquisitions, received at least £17m from BHS during its ownership of the retailer.
Chappell and his associates were labelled as “incompetent and self-serving” by the parliamentary committee that investigated the failure of BHS. MPs said Chappell “had his hands in the till” and helped to oversee the “systematic plunder” of BHS.
As well as lining up administrators for Swiss Rock, Chappell has moved his family home in Dorset out of a £1.5m loan that was handed over by Retail Acquisitions using cash from BHS.
The security on the loan has been switched from the Chappell family home to a property in Portugal, and Land Registry documents no longer list Retail Acquisitions as the lender on the Chappells’ property. The Guardianrevealed last week that the home was on the brink of repossession before the £1.5m loan from Retail Acquisitions was used to pay off debts against it.
In addition, the shares in JDM Island Properties, the company that owns the Chappells’ home, have been switched from Colin Sutton, an accountant and friend of the family, to Olivia Investments, the Chappell family’s Gibraltar-based investment fund.
These actions could distance the property from the administrators and investigators trying to recover cash for BHS. The Chappell family home now has no connection to Retail Acquisitions or BHS, so if the £1.5m is ordered to be repaid, then the property cannot be claimed instead.
Chappell confirmed to the Observer that Swiss Rock was likely to go into administration next week. “It is a company that we are no longer using. It was very connected with the acquisition of BHS,” Chappell said.
However, Chappell refused to deny that Swiss Rock would be leaving unpaid debts, including a tax bill. “I am not prepared to go into anything at the moment until we have gone into the detail,” he added.
He also declined to say why he was moving the properties around. “I am not making any comment on that. It is confidential and private.”
Chappell said he would make a written response to the MPs report into the BHS controversy this week.
He told ITV in a television interview that he been “stitched up” by Sir Philip Green when the billionaire tycoon sold BHS to Retail Acquisitions because Green did not deliver on promises to fix the deficit in the BHS pension scheme or ensure that suppliers supported the new owners.
Chappell also insisted he would not return any of the money he banked from BHS, which was more than £4m including the £1.5m loan. “I earned that money,” he said.
The Insolvency Service and the Pensions Regulator are both investigating the former owner of BHS. The Serious Fraud Office is also considering whether to launch a formal investigation.
However, Chappell insisted he had behaved correctly. He added: “My conscience is very clear, that we did the right thing, right the way through.”
0 Comments