Philip Green: The king of the high street in his most outspoken interview ever

Every celebrity entrepreneur has to have a catchphrase. You're Fired. I'm Out. Sir Philip Green, self-made billionaire and boss of Bhs and Arcadia, has one, too. Come And See Me. Benign enough, you might think, compared to the theatrically aggressive posturings of the telly moguls from Sir Alan Sugar and the assorted Dragons to Peter Jones's Tycoon. Well, that depends what happens when you get to Go And See Him.

At a "masterclass" Q&A session held by Green at the new Fashion Retail Academy north of Oxford street, he utters those magic words about a dozen times. Green, whose Arcadia Group owns Topshop, Wallis, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Topman and Outfit, is the main sponsor of the academy, a Government-partnered initiative that aims to be "a training ground for young entrepreneurial talent".

At first terrified, the teenage students one by one stand up and tell Green how they've found the last year. They did work experience at Tesco and loved it. Did a placement at Topshop and didn't love it. Not enough coursework. Too much work. Green listens intently. "Come and see me afterwards," he says to one student frustrated at her lack of job offers. Hands start shooting up. Some of the students are in tears they're so happy. The class goes on for an hour and a half.

The wannabe fashion buyers, visual merchandisers and PRs who got the nod won't see Green himself (he's got his hands full controlling 12 per cent of the British high street) but the head of his graduate recruitment program at Arcadia. That's not to say he won't check up on them personally. "I don't do that if I can't follow it through," he promises. The academy, which sees its first students graduate next Wednesday, is something of a personal cause for him.

"I think, on balance, productive," Green concludes of the session afterwards, sipping mineral water back at his fifth-floor office at Arcadia HQ on Berners Street, just a short henchman-flanked stroll from the academy. Two days a week he's at his other office down the road at Bhs. I wonder whether it's as posh as his inner sanctum at Arcadia, which is all creamy carpets and black lacquered furniture. He sits at a glass-topped boardroom table. There are family pictures in silver frames; a scale model of his Gulfstream jet. It's all very Dynasty. A framed photograph of Gordon Gekko, signed by Michael Douglas, hangs on the wall. (A gift, he points out. Not bought by him: "I'm not a hirer or firer to make or save money. Not my style. No.")

Born in Croydon in 1952 to a Jewish family, Green left school at 16 but got his first job at 12, working for a shoe importer. His father died the same year. His mother was in business. She's 90 now and is still bothering her lawyer and her accountant, he chuckles. She ran garages and launderettes, did property investment. But he didn't want to join the family business. The shoe-importing job made £20 a week. Then he came up with the idea of matching up stray single shoes and selling them as pairs. He earned another £150 at the weekend from that.

He made his first million by buying, turning around, and then selling a jeans retailer called Jean Jeannie in the 1970s. During the Eighties and Nineties the profits from his entrepreneurial schemes mushroomed. In 1999 he tried to buy Marks & Spencer. That bid failed, so he bought Bhs and knocked it into shape just when everyone else had written it off. In 2002 he became the second-biggest force on the high street (after M&S) when he paid £850m to assume control of the multi-brand Arcadia Group. So why the garment trade? Could it as easily have been something else – cars, property?

"Could have been. I got into clothing by accident. But then it's been consistent after the accident. I started in shoes. Then went to clothing. I taught myself. Never worked for anybody in the clothing business, in any area of the clothing business. " He never had a mentor, nor really any business heroes, although he admires "Lord Hanson. Lord White. That sort of older, buccaneer generation." Does he ever meet any young people with as much drive as he had at that age? "Not half as much as I should!"

Last year, Green told Kate Moss to Come And See Him. At a charity auction, he had paid £60,000 for a kiss with the supermodel – although he famously gave away his prize to the socialite Jemima Khan. A week later, the mogul and the model met again by accident at the Dorchester Hotel, where Green lives during the week (he flies home to Monte Carlo each weekend on his Gulfstream). She's said to have suggested: "I'm a girl from Croydon, you're a boy from Croydon. Let's do a collection together." True?

"Yeah," he says, matter-of-factly, as we survey the plates of sushi and salad on the boardroom table. "Exactly like that. We hooked up about a week later, had a chat about it. Sounded a good idea." Moss is due in later that afternoon for a meeting. What's she like as a colleague, then? "Yeah, she's good," he says with a grin, "I had dinner with her on Tuesday. A catch-up."

Green doesn't know how profitable Kate Moss for Topshop has been yet, but he's pleased with the marketing brouhaha around the launch, of which he says he was the "architect". When the deal was announced last September, celebrity lines had already been a big hit in the US for several seasons. In Europe, H&M had had hits with its Madonna and Kylie ranges. Topshop was conspicuously holding back. Green insists that he wasn't looking out for a starry deal – Moss came to him.

"I think things turn up, right? Part of the art of being entrepreneurial – because I keep hearing this word, entrepreneurial – is having vision. You know, things turn up, and you're able to react or respond to them, right? You know, I haven't got a routine. Somebody might phone out of the sky, which they do on a daily basis, and talk to me or offer me or show me something I hadn't even thought about. I always say, 'Put 12 people around this table, run by 10 things that may or may not be an opportunity – eight of them won't do anything about it because they didn't know it was an opportunity.' It was an impulse moment. And it's about turning those into either positives or negatives. Gut feel!"

A collaboration with Kate Moss was pretty obviously a good opportunity. You must have known that right away? "Not really. I thought: 'We'll have a look at it.'"

Were you concerned at all about the cocaine scandal? Green's fork stops mid-air. He gives me a look. "I THOUGHT THIS WASN'T GOING TO BE..." he barks. Then, quietly: "You don't want to be thrown out before lunch, do you? We're not even going there, OK? You've already got a yellow card and you've only been here for five minutes. And you haven't even had your chicken yet."

Green can make Sir Alan and his ilk look about as intimidating as Lorraine Kelly. Try to steer him into a potential red-card zone and he'll give you a sub-zero glare. He wants any swearing erased from the transcript. He's not interested in talking about last week's rebellion at the Tesco AGM (where shareholders' consciences were pricked by charity reports that Bangladeshi garment workers were being paid 5p an hour), nor about Sir Ronald Cohen's recent comments before a Treasury Select Committee on tax paid by the super-rich. Personal questions, while not specifically off-limits, tend to staunch the glorious flow of his oration to a trickle.

Not that this disallows any mention of his son Brandon, 14, or daughter Chloe, 16. At one point he stops the interview to take a call from his wife, Tina, in whose name the considerable family wealth (£4.85bn) resides. He wants to make sure she got a jokey text message he sent her.

So has he got an art collection back in Monte Carlo? "Bits." Long pause. Has he any vices? "Not really. I'm a simple man." He relishes bamboozling nosy journalists. "I took a journalist to France on the plane once. Known her for a long time. Got to Nice airport. Gave her a ticket home and 100 francs for a coffee. 'That's it,' I said, 'End of journey for you.' She thought she was going to Monaco." He laughs.

He'd be brilliant on telly, and knows it. But apart from two short cameos, once in The Apprentice and currently in Tycoon, Green has avoided reality-TV fame. "I watched the final of The Apprentice," he says with a wolfish look, "Never saw it before. It came on at 9pm. I woke up at 10.15 and asked my wife what happened." You've been asked to do a lot of these shows, then? "Could do as many as you like!" he scoffs. "As many as you like! I don't want to be rude, but I think you've got to make a decision. I've turned all this stuff down for a simple reason. 'Cos it's too time-consuming. You get half motivated. And you think: 'Can I do justice to this? Do I want to be running my business or do I want to be on TV?' And we've come to the conclusion that they end up being personal, they're about you, and it's not what I want to do. I couldn't spare the time I'd have to give it, right, if I want to run my business. So in the end, we always get to 'no'."

This is a shame, because a Sir Philip Green monologue on his favourite subject – deal-doing – is mesmerising stuff. Italian suit-jacket off, diamond cuff links twinkling as he circles his hands in the air at the good bits of the story, rapping the table with his finger at the when-the-chips-are-down parts, it's all delivered a staccato stream of Ray Winstone gravelliness. And Britain's fifth-richest man, the swashbuckling retailer who wants to turn his Topshop into a global brand, has got eight items of gilt-edged advice to dish out to nascent wheeler-dealers.

1. Stick to what you know

"I happen to have stayed in a particular box – clothing, retail – for a hell of a long time. And [I've] not run all the way around 50 deals. If you spoke to 10 entrepreneurs, and we looked at the last 10 years, they might have done 50 deals. And if you said to them, honestly, if they'd kept just the first two and not done the other 48, would they have been in a better place? They may have been." He looks satisfied.

"My philosophy has been: I stick to what I know. I get 20 things turn up all the time. Which ones are worth spending time on? Which ones are not for me? When the [Kate Moss deal] was discussed, I thought, 'Yeah,'" he shrugs his shoulders, "'sounds a good idea.'" But all these good ideas are only good ideas if you can execute them and turn them into something... real. The other thing is, as a business, I'm not really interested in doing things that are very short term. I don't want to break my head doing a three-, six-, 10-week hype. I'm interested in whether we can build something."

2. Plug in

"Teach yourself about how things are done. See how other people are doing them. Even now, I scan two or three papers through. Something catches my eye, you know – looks interesting. Or innovative or different. Or if you like – need to know. I think a lot of things are about, you know, need to know. I've got a semi-good photographic memory. As I say to my son, and he's a sponge of useful and useless information: 'You've got to have good general knowledge.' Got to be able to plug in. So you can give a semi-quality response to anything, as opposed to just guessing."

3. Get a feel for trends

Green is famously hands-on at Arcadia, adjusting window displays of his seven brands, always on top of the details. He'll say that he's not involved with the creative side of Topshop, that he's "not a designer". Doesn't need to be. There are around 60 designers at Arcadia HQ alone, he says. Yet he's as knowledgeable about fashion trends as any glossy-magazine editor. "You get a direction. You get a feel. For whether something's coming. I remember, maybe three or four years ago, in LA, I go to 'shop the stores'," he says, referring to his research sprees where he'll buy garments that catch his eye. "When I go to shops, I find the manageress, and I say: 'Get out your 10 winners.' Then I walk round the store, I'll ask what's selling. This was Easter, April time. And the only thing they were selling were ponchos. Woollen ponchos in 90 degrees! So I said, 'Sorry?' I bought six of them and I DHL'd them back here. I said: 'Get into this!' Now, what happened was, Wallis were first. And off we went! Ponchos were massive."

Arcadia's ability to respond to and drive trends across the mass market is widely acknowledged. Equally, Topshop's continuing credibility among the fashion élite is a constant source of satisfaction to him. "I was at a lunch yesterday. Which I don't do much. Too on the trot. And there was some women there. High-end women. Bond Street. Couture shoppers. 'Got to have an appointment at Topshop,' they said. These are people who are not our typical shopper, right? But where our market's moving, they want to come and mix-and-match. They've got no problem coming to Topshop and mixing it with high-end. The interest, fashion interest, globally, has got bigger. I think at different levels, people want to be fashionable, and at every age group." Last autumn Topshop's talented brand director Jane Shepherdson exited the company, recently reappearing as a consultant at ethical fashion brand People Tree. Has her resignation impacted on the brand? "Not at all. Look – are Arsenal still going to play football without Thierry Henry? Or will they take the goalposts down?"

4. Take risks

The Kate Moss line has launched successfully in the US. Now Green is planning to take Topshop proper into a market where other British brands have tried and failed to expand. It's different there, isn't it?

"It's got people. With two legs, two arms. Which bit's different?" he retorts.

OK, they're not familiar with the idea of fast fashion in America.

"Well," he says, slowly, for the benefit of this simple-minded business student. "Let's put our entrepreneurial hat back on? Is that a negative or a positive?"

Well, it makes it risky.

"I didn't ask you that. Is it negative or positive?"

OK, let's say it's a negative.

"OK, fine. Let's follow that track. Do you like salmon?" He points at a plate of half-eaten smoked salmon.

Not especially.

"Why?"

I find it a bit oily.

"Have you eaten it, tried it?"

Yes.

"You've tried it. Didn't die from it? On the basis we've got 2,500 shops, and assuming we're semi-intelligent, we're not going to die if we open a shop in New York. We might die if we open 500 without testing it. I was trying to give you an analogy. I think we're a big enough business that we've got to stretch the boundaries to teach ourselves. Will we make some mistakes? Course we will. Do we need to do it? No we don't. So that's the time to do it. I've worked out how to get in. You write a cheque, right?"

That gets you the property?

"Right. That's easy. You just think: 'I'm gonna do it.' Is it slightly advanced for America? Yes it is. Is it too advanced? We think we'd know how to temper it. To add a bit of... American to it. You probably can't translate a pure European business [there]. But you can translate it by probably adding a couple of young American designers. Like we do here.

"I'm already on the case. Americans jog. They do fitness. You've got to add in a little bit of what works locally into the pot. You can't be arrogant enough to think you can just pick up your shop and just move it. 'Cos it won't work. But that's the learning curve."

The idea of taking Arcadia to the Yanks enthuses him a lot more than taking it carbon neutral. Will it ever happen? "Well. I suppose we've all got to try and do... environmentally friendly things," he says slowly, "Carbon neutral – who knows? It's got to be deliverable. But, yeah, we've got to be part of what's gong on. Can't disengage yourself from the world, can you? But you read that Prince Charles took 64 people to America. I mean, what's he supposed to do, swim there? Laughable. Where's it end? What, so nobody's going to travel, go on holiday? It's bizarre. But no doubt over a period of time, it'll all evolve. This is going to take years, isn't it? It's not an overnight, don't put the lights on after 9pm, is it? Live in the dark? There's a balance isn't there? You've got to be positive about these changes, haven't you?"

5. Don't think about what you can't do

Even before the Kate Moss deal and the record-breaking £1.2bn payout the Greens awarded themselves in 2005, he was making the front pages for his attempts to buy M&S. In 2004 he made his second offer, of £9.1bn, for the illustrious chain, but Green wouldn't go ahead with the buyout without the support of the board. The bid failed, and he fell out with his friend Stuart Rose over it, although they've since made up. So would he give it another go?

"Not a chance," he says. "What for? I could say the same thing about M&S as doing a TV show. They've both got not a lot of upside in terms of lifespan, right? They've both got 'health risk' on them. Ask Stuart Rose. That was then, this is now, I don't even spend five minutes of my time thinking about what I don't do. I spend all of my time thinking about what I can do. I'm not a nearly man. I'm not one of those people who says 'if only'. It's not how I live. There was a fundamental decision not to buy something, right? Which was my decision not to buy it, right? 'Cos if I'd paid 5 or 10 or 15p [per share] more, I'd have bought it. It was only about price. So another two, three, 500 million – it'd have got done." He brightens. "I suppose that I can live very comfortably with the fact that twice I've woken that company up. In 2000 I woke them up and in 2004 I woke them up. So the shareholders should be paying me money, right? Instead of 40 million to a bunch of jokers who didn't even want to have a meeting."

6. Say: 'Come And See Me'

He describes the antipathy towards his 2004 bid from within the M&S boardroom as "a wall of sentiment". Was he hurt by that?

"Well, let's put it this way. Assuming somebody phones me up and says: 'I've got 12 billion pound to spend. And it's 40 per cent more than I thought my business was worth three weeks before.' I suppose I might at least do the courtesy of saying: 'Come and see me.' They'll debate that they saw me once, but the bottom line was, they spent all their effort and time not seeing me. To my mind, you say: 'Thank you very much for your interest in my business. I don't want to sell it.' I've got that. Or: 'It's the wrong price.' But what always amuses me is – you turn up. Share price is £2.80. You want to pay 'em £4. All of a sudden they're worried you know more about their business than they do, and they're running it. Like this whole venture-capital debate. Without venture capital, half these share prices would probably be half what they are. They're all sitting there, hoping they get a phone call."

A call from America interrupts us. When Green comes back, he's thinking about his own business again: what he can do, not what he can't do. " It's all a question of what you think your priorities are. I think we [want to] get on and run our business the best way we know how, and use all our resources to spend all our days developing our businesses. We don't have to spend them pleasing a load of people. Public companies are a different world. "

You wouldn't get involved with public companies again?

"What for?"

If there was one you want to buy?

"Yeah – to buy. Yeah, why not? Not to run. Look, all markets go round in circles. I'm not looking to buy something, so something will have to turn up."

7. Work hard

How will Green be as hands-on as he has been if Topshop goes global?

"I'll get two more pairs of hands," he says, dryly. " Allocate my time well. Doing what I do is about going where I can make a difference. The whole Bhs issue – when I was 100 per cent focused on it, it was doing X. When I was 50 per cent focused on it, Y, when I wasn't focused it was doing Z. I spread myself fairly thin. So it's got to be on a need-to basis. It's also about picking the right people. If you don't empower the right people, nothing happens. You can't run 40,000 people on your own. Can't."

Last autumn Green reported a fall in profits at Bhs; at the time he described the downturn as "self-inflicted". He says now: " It's doing OK. It's lived through the ups and downs." Is he thinking about selling it? "I never think about selling anything. I haven't actively looked to sell it. But every single business I have, if something turns up that I thought was a better idea than I've got, I'd look at it.

"I've never made a penny in my career out of firing a load of people – I would never do something that would damage a thousand people. Right? So if ever something was going to happen to it, it would have to be something I absolutely bought into. That would protect the business, the people. I wouldn't do something just to make a load of money. Would I sell off all the stores, for example? No. So - it's a well-run business in a competitive market. Has it done less well in the last year or two than it did? Yes, but that's because I bought eight other businesses and I tried to buy Marks & Spencer in between."

Which of his rivals would he grant is doing a good job?

"River Island's doing a good job. Good business. Family business. Doing it forever. I like Zara as a business. Great model. Clever business. That's it."

8. Even tycoons need R&R

Philip Green's 55 now. No, he's not planning be retired and relaxing on his yacht in 10 years' time. He starts work when he gets up at 6.45am, ploughing his way through until 10pm. He's not on Gordon Brown's new business leaders council but says his relationship with the Prime Minister is: "OK. I've spoken to him a few times. But I don't do politics, as such."

He enjoys what he terms "sporting banter" with other titans of capitalism. He speaks to Stuart Rose four times a week. "I'm his daily entertainment. Before he goes to his office over at the morgue." He doesn't socialise in London much. "Can't be bothered. I like small groups of people. I'm not looking for new playmates."

Do you give yourself time off?

"Mmn. Yeah. A bit of time off. A bit of R&R. Need that. Mend the head."

What do you do in R&R time?

"Nothing. Play cards. Bit of tennis. Lots of sports, like sport. Do not business."

Do you want to buy a football team? "No, thank you." An F1 team? "No." Are you competitive when playing sport?

"I'm competitive at EVERYTHING. I don't give my kids any starts."

No handicaps?

"No. They gotta win. No starts."

What do you play with them, tennis?

"Table tennis. My son's got good at that. He's beating me. And he's very competitive as well. Why do you want to do things you're not competitive about? I think that's really important, especially with your children. You've got to want to win at whatever you're doing, haven't you? If you haven't got a winning ambition, why play? What's the point?"