Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group had a pension deficit of £510 million at the time of its collapse last November - around £150 million more than expected.
In total, the Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Burton and Miss Selfridge parent is said to have owed creditors £800 million when it called in the administrators from Deloitte.
Up to 12,000 jobs were on the line after the group went bust, and thousands have already lost their jobs after online operators Asos and Boohoo bought the brands but not the stores.
Trade creditors are owed over £163 million and landlords £36.5 million, while tax bodies are owed over £44 million. As usual, HMRC will be first in line to get funds raised by the administrators but others are likely to get little.
More than 1,000 trade suppliers are set to get less than 1 per cent of the money owed to them.
The Green family’s Aldsworth Equity is expected to get a £50 million payout though. That cash is owed on an interest-free loan Aldsworth made to the group in 2019, at the time of an emergency restructure at the troubled group.
The trustees of the pension scheme have said they have received £180 million of funds from the sale of Arcadia assets so far. That is part of £210 million in secured funds agreed under a 2019 deal between the pensions regulator and the Green family.
That deal will reduce the actual pension deficit.
Gift card holders for Arcadia stores are expected to lose around £4.5 million in unspent balances.
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