Don't write me off, says Philip Green

WHEN Philip Green phoned his 13-year-old daughter, Chloe, last Wednesday to say he was pulling out of his bid to buy Marks & Spencer, he knew she would be delighted. 'She had been horrified when I'd originally told her I was going after it,' he recalls.

'She had burst into floods of tears, telling me I'd promised her I wouldn't buy anything else and that I would spend more time at home. But worst of all, she had then said: 'You lied to me, Dad'.'

He breathes deeply. 'It churned me up, I can tell you. But then my 12-year-old son, Brandon, had come on the phone and said: 'I think it's great. Go, Dad, go.' He shrugs. 'So what do you do?'

The answer, not just in relation to the M&S deal but to everything that this extraordinary tycoon touches, was to follow his instincts.

Philip Green, 52, owns Bhs, TopShop and Dorothy Perkins, among other businesses. He is Britain's fourth richest man, with a total of 2,300 shops in the UK and assets said to be worth £3.61bn.

Last week, he was within an inch of tying up the deal of the century. He offered a staggering £9.1bn to buy Marks & Spencer - putting up a large chunk of his own money. In the end, it didn't come off because he wouldn't budge from his top offer of £4 a share, and was refused a chance to look at the books.

The high-profile negotiations over the past few weeks have turned him into a national figure. Even those of us who aren't interested in business have been fascinated by this 21st-century swashbuckling tycoon, who could have written the biggest personal cheque in UK history.

So how is Green - a man who always likes to win - coping with failing to clinch the deal?

Certainly, when we meet for breakfast at 7.30am in his suite at a top hotel, he is keen to portray himself more like a cuddly bear than a determined businessman trying to lick his wounds.

'I am very touchy-feely,' he insists, lighting up the first of many skinny Philip Morris cigarettes. 'Not just when I'm dealing with something financial, but also personally. I'm a very emotional man and I need people to respond to me emotionally.'

The key to the M&S deal, was, however, knowing when to put his emotions to one side.

'I passionately wanted to own M&S, but it was crucial to remain disciplined at the right moment and know when to stop, rather than be caught up in all the emotion.

'I've read lots of books on great entrepreneurs, and it's always the one deal too far that gets them into trouble. I didn't want that to happen to me.

'I don't think I have failed. I am not usually a good loser, but on this occasion it was more courageous to walk than to carry on. I could have owned it if I had wanted to pay the wrong price. The question was: 'Do I want to win at any price?' The answer was I didn't.'

Nor is Green emotional about the unpleasant encounter when he was with the BBC's business editor, Jeff Randall, at The Dorchester Hotel last week and they were spotted by Nicholas Soames, Tory defence spokesman and a friend of Prince Charles.

Soames allegedly remarked: 'We know how these people work.' A row between Soames and Green followed over what Green may have misinterpreted as an anti-Semitic comment.

'Someone in public service shouldn't be saying those sort of things,' Green told me yesterday. 'It was very bad form.'

Of course, you don't get to make the millions accrued by Green by being Mr Softie. 'I blow a fuse from time to time,' he admits. 'The people who work for me know that. My wife knows that. But after ten minutes, it's gone and I forget about it.'

He also prides himself on having a conscience, and donates generously to charity.

'At the end of June, there was a moment in the [M&S] transaction when I could have used an opportunity to gain an advantage - but because I have to live with myself, I didn't take it,' he says. 'Others might not have been so honest.'

His long-time former colleague Stuart Rose, who had been called in by M&S as the new chief executive, had (it turned out) bought 100,000 shares in the company on the same morning he'd spoken to Green on the phone.

City watchdog the Financial Services Authority (FSA) wanted to know whether Rose knew of the bid before buying the shares, which would amount to insider dealing.

Green says: 'When we were pulled in by the FSA to find out who said what, I told them I couldn't remember. If I had wanted to win that badly, I could have said I'd mentioned that I wanted to buy M&S - there would have been insider dealing problems and he would have been thrown out of the job. Instead, I told the truth. He owes me one.'

Philip Green's views on business run and run. However, getting him to talk about his personal life isn't so easy. 'It's not a territory I like going into,' he warns. It is, inevitably, revealing.

He was born in 1952, in Croydon, south London, and has a sister, Elizabeth, five years his senior. The family moved to Hampstead Garden Suburb, a middle-class enclave in north London, and at the age of nine he was sent to the now-closed Jewish boarding school Carmel College in Oxfordshire.

'I didn't mind going so early. It made me independent,' he shrugs.

When he was only 12, his father died of a heart attack. (Incidentally, Green himself had a heart attack seven years ago.) Such a tragedy would hit most boys very hard. But Green claims it had little effect.

'I wasn't close to him,' he says. 'He didn't get involved with me much. I was close to my mother, Alma. She's been my biggest influence and my role model. She was the strong one, good at business and very determined.'

Did he take on the role of the man of the house after his father passed away? 'Not at all. My mother has always been very independent, and remains so even now at 85.'

Green left school at 16 with no qualifications, but says: 'I wasn't academic at all, but then I haven't needed to be.'

Despite his admiration for his mother, he never wanted to take over the family business. 'I wanted to do my own thing,' he insists. His first job was buying and selling shoes. He quickly moved to buying and selling various businesses, many unsuccessfully.

He learnt from his mistakes and, at the age of 33, became a selfmade millionaire when he went into the jeans business. He bought the Jean Jeanie chain of shops for £65,000 and sold it a year later for £3m.

'Luckily, I am multi-talented,' he says. 'I can put finance together as well as deal with merchandise, personnel and property, including how a shop should look. Most people can only handle one of those things.'

He first tried to buy M&S in 1999, but was rebuffed. Instead, he bought Bhs for £200m the following year; 20 months later it was valued at £1.2bn - which meant Green had made the fastest billion in the history of British business.

'One reason I am successful is that I don't sit in my office hoping something happens - I make things happen,' he says.

'Let me explain the sort of man I am. If there are 20 people in a room and a deal is put on the table, ten wouldn't even realise it was there, five would turn it down and the other four would hesitate; but I'd quickly analyse it and if I thought it was on, I'd go for it.'

Not surprisingly, he has been described as 'flash'; he owns a £20m yacht and a £16m private jet. For his 50th birthday he flew 200 guests to Cyprus for a three-day toga party.

But 'flash' is not a description he likes. 'It's not anyone's business what I spend my money on - but for the record, I don't think I am flash,' he says, just a little sharply.

'For me, money is being able to do what I want, when I want to. Why shouldn't I have my own plane if I can afford it? It's dreadful the way people herd you around at airports.

'In fact, I am often mean with myself. For my holiday, I've bought all my T-shirts from Bhs.'

There have also been rumours that he has an eye for the ladies. 'Please!' he says firmly. 'The rumour that I'm a naughty boy is nonsense. I do not go out playboying. I can't afford a divorce. It would be cheaper to buy Marks & Spencer!'

He met his wife, Tina, at London's San Lorenzo restaurant in the late Eighties. She was married at the time with two children.

He says: 'I'm not going into detail, except to say it's always difficult when someone is married with kids, but I didn't have the additional difficulty of coping with a ready-made family because they lived with their dad.' He married Tina at Westminster Register Office in 1990, when he was 38, and they now live in Monaco in an £8m hilltop villa with their son and daughter.

Green says bringing up children isn't easy when you are phenomenally wealthy. 'I believe in discipline and good manners, and I try to instil into them that being positive is essential in life.

'I make sure they fight to win, too. We are competitive at everything. I never give them any chances when we play table tennis or cards. They win only when they are good enough.

'They will probably say I am not a great dad because I don't spend enough time with them - but I have dinner every Friday night with them, wherever I have been in the world.

'It's hard not to spoil them. It worries me that certain things like travelling in private planes have become the norm, so I keep telling them that they are not going to get loads of money to do what they like - they are going to have to work for a living. But I do hope they come into the business.'

At this point, Green's hairdresser arrives at the hotel suite. Without a second's thought about being in female company, he removes his loose-fitting white shirt to reveal a tanned, rather hairy chest, and dons a grey robe.

He then carries on talking unselfconsciously while the hairdresser does his hair, eyebrows and the hairs in his nostrils.

He admits being tired. 'For the 40-odd days I was working on the [M&S] deal, I was putting in 18-hour days and would wake up three or four times in the night. In fact, I spent 25 of those nights on my own in a hotel because I needed to be quiet and to refocus.

'Now the deal is over, it still pleases me that I only asked five banks for loans, and all five said yes. It's not bad for someone who opened his first shop 25 years ago to be able to raise £12.5bn.'

'Actually,' he adds, his eyes twinkling, 'the deal nearly didn't come off for an entirely different reason. I'm very superstitious, and I've used a special Bvlgari pen to sign every deal I've done over the past 12 years, but during the M&S negotiations I lost it. My wife rang everywhere in the world that I'd been, trying to find it. Luckily, it turned up behind a desk. I wouldn't have signed anything without it.

'Although I withdrew in the end, I'd like to think that the whole episode has inspired others to go for things. And at least I've made my daughter very happy.'

However, she should enjoy her dad's company while she can. You can't imagine Philip Green resting on his laurels for long.

Interview by Angela Levin