Arcadia tycoon Sir Philip Green’s retail empire paid out £16m to his wife last year, as the company swung from profit to loss and has rounded on online fashion rival Asos over its use of Topshop branding on its website, warning that he will sue the company if it does not stop taking “unfair advantage of our trademark”.
Arcadia tycoon Sir Philip Green’s retail empire paid out £16m to his wife last year, as the company swung from profit to loss and has rounded on online fashion rival Asos over its use of Topshop branding on its website, warning that he will sue the company if it does not stop taking “unfair advantage of our trademark”.
His holding company saw its tax bill fall sharply, accounts showed, after it posted a loss of £120m, in contrast to the previous year’s profit of £213m.
It came as Sir Philip, in a separate development, threatened legal proceedings against Asos, his rival online retailer, for taking “unfair advantage of our trade mark”. In a sign of how fiercely Sir Philip is fighting for customers in the tough fashion market, he said Asos had to immediately take Topshop’s name down from its website, otherwise he would sue.
The legal letter to Asos was sent on the same day that Sir Philip filed the accounts for Taveta Investments, his holding company which owns all his shop chains such as Bhs, TopShop, Burton as well as various property investments.
The company, as it had previously announced, swung from a profit to a loss. This meant its tax bill, in the year to August 27 2011, fell from £70.9m to £2.83m.
The accounts also show that Sir Philip’s wife, Lady Green, “and her immediate family” received an interest payment of £16m. This was because during 2009 Taveta bought Bhs, which was paid for via the issue of loan notes to companies controlled by Lady Green and her family.