Green makes £1m as he offloads Moss Bros slice

Sir Philip Green's return to the stock market did not last for long but he has today departed the scene and is nearly £1 million richer.

Two weeks ago he snapped up a 28.5% stake in struggling suits firm Moss Bros and talked of making a bid for the whole of the business.

Today he offloaded the stake at a profit to Simon Berwin, the managing director of Berwin & Berwin, one of the UK's biggest suppliers of suits to retailers such as Next, Ted Baker and indeed Moss Bros itself.

Leeds-based Berwin's trust now owns 29.9% of the business - just 0.1% shy of the level at which he is obliged to bid for the rest of the company.

Sir Philip paid £6.7 million for his stake at 24.95p a share. He sold at 28.85p, a return of just under £1 million, although today he stressed that he had paid overheads during complex negotiations to buy the original stake from Iceland-based Baugur.

Moss Bros has proved an impossible takeover target for many suitors, with some of the shareholders said to want more than 80p a share for their stakes

Brewin said: "We're not intending to make a bid at the moment. We would just like to bring a period of stability to Moss Bros. They're big customers of ours and they've been through a lot in the past few years with companies bidding and we want to try and stabilise things."

Sir Philip said: "This was a totally unpremeditated situation where someone turned up who wanted to buy the stake. It's not some complicated saga. I met him for the first time at 9.35 this morning, he turns up and he has the money. Simple."

Under the terms of the deal, it appears that Berwin is happy for Moss Bros to continue plans for a suit-hire joint venture with Sir Philip's Burton and Bhs businesses.

Moss Bros shares rose 2p to 19p.

Although Sir Philip is one of the best-known UK businessmen, due to his ownership of Topshop and Bhs, these companies are privately held away from the glare of the stock market.