Damaged Goods: The Inside Story of Sir Philip Green, the Collapse of BHS and the Death of the High Street Kindle Edition

This book is great and very well written. It gives good insight to how these guys operated. I can’t help liking Philip Green though.

This is a book that will be enjoyed by people who have shopped at BHS and have fond memories of that chain of stores before it fell victim to corporate greed. This is also a book that will enthral fans of commercial fraud, and the psychology of greed. Philip Green (PG) as a human being is not worth a minute’s attention, but the story of his character and nature, and the fraudsters and charlatans he dealt with (and who dealt him in) is worth studying. Shah traces Philip Green’s family history and the control of it by Alma, the matriarch (PG’s mother), and how PG mad his fortunes acquiring Topshop, and later other chains, buying cheap stuff from companies in trouble and branding them with upgrades saw his profits soar. Shah tells how PG paid GBP200m for BHS and how he eventually sold it for GBP1. Then came the vultures – Paul Sutton, the fraudster and Dominic Chappell, described by Shah as ‘a charlatan’. PG might have been conned, but he was, as we learn, only too anxious to get rid of BHS because he was unable to fulfil the staff’s pension obligations. That is the saddest part of the tale, and the unfortunate thing is that this book makes us wonder whether capitalism can ever be tweaked to prevent the PGs of this world from harming the poor again.

Read it over 4 days, what an exciting book with exceptional detail. I enjoyed it and I would recommend it to anyone.

Excellent story.

Could have done with a very thorough edit. A mix of rash leaps of judgement / logic based on flimsy content and esoteric details and figures that didn’t add much. Characters were constantly being reintroduced in a confusing manner. Got better when describing the fall of BHS (the part of the story Shah knows most about, having reported extensively on it - he struggled when filling in backstory to flesh out a book).But ultimately the book fell down because of its slant. What should have been a well balanced read on a very interesting tale read like a badly written assassination piece on Green and the reader is left almost on Green’s side in protest despite Green being an objectively terrible person.

Very good book, could not put it down. Fantastic author, tells it like it REALLY is! Unbelievable what he did.

An excellent description of the life of someone who displays all the worst traits of the entrepreneur. The drive and ambition are often covers for arrogance, greed and rudeness and, almost inevitably failure - although PG has ensured that (at the expense of others) he will always be cash-rich. I came across his type too often and know that the bluster usually hides insecurity and angst.The writing is of quality and at times reads like a thriller - even when you know who will be revealed as the villain. My one gripe with it is that the Oliver Shah's paper built up PG in the same way as it built up a number of similar entrepreneurs and the subsequent destruction of him in print and in this book means that the journalist raises but does not address some delicate but important questions on issues of responsibility.

An absolutely devastating expose on the one time darling on the high street, Phil Green is left with his reputation in tatters from this outstanding book.It isn’t the dry, matter of fact financial journalism piece that one may expect, inside it gives equal weight to Green, the man and what made him tick. It isn’t a complete hatchet job, it acknowledges his efforts and talent, admitting that few were as daring or brass necked as Green could be. It points to Charles Clore, who Green appeared to mould himself upon and yet suffered a similar fate as a retail magnate turned greedy rogue.It rightly assesses that while Green was an asset stripper at the end of the BHS era, it was perhaps understandable why he wanted to sell it off. The moral issue is that he did so by taking what he could, leaving innocent staff with no livelihoods, although Dominic Chapelle undoubtedly had the responsibility to the ultimate downfall as he continued with wild spending, mostly upon himself.It marries the tragedy of failure was down to Green being an insecure man who simply couldn’t bare to meet disaster. He duck and dived, confronted journalists, misled shareholders, yet absorbed it all by partying with glamour girls and cruising for months at a time on his luxury yacht.Few books have been so well researched to give such a detailed picture of the person and the financial detail of complex business decisions to eloquently in such a face paced, gripping way. It reads more like a political thriller than a biography. If you want to know why Britain has a failing high street, this is a good place to start.

For a long time my opinion of Sir Philip Green was that of a very competent entrepreneur who was fast mastering the art of turning our poorly performing retail clothing sector into efficiently run profit centres fit for purpose in today's High Street versus internet battle. And in doing so I was unconcerned that he was pocketing high rewards for his successes.After reading this book I saw Sir Philip in a completely different light none of which covered him in a positive glow, quite the contrary it exposes him as a foul mouthed, bullying, extremely greedy , boastful and generally unpleasant person.Whilst this book is very well put together and accurate ( I say this because Sir Philips often used in the past to suppress negative news team of highly paid top lawyers have thus far seemingly not challenged the authenticity of this book) it does burst the bubble of belief that he is a clever business leader and an example to be followed. Quite the opposite under no circumstances should his style of running a business be copied unless the sole intent is to bleed a company dry of financial resources and then throw it to the wolves!A very good and interesting book but nevertheless the exposure of Philip Green's bully boy money grasping mentality is depressing and a very poor example of how some entrepreneurs conduct themselves.

I bought this for as a small Christmas present for my son. From what he has told me, it is a very interesting read.