241 Pizza

Before meeting him for the first time at the Arcadia press show at the Royal Academy, I’m briefed to meet the billionaire. Being a smoker is preferred. Green smokes a packet of long skinny Philip Morris cigarettes a day and has a bit of a cough to prove it.

His arrival at the Royal Academy is announced by walkie-talkie. Expecting a powerful ego to come lording it in, I’m surprised to meet a deeply bronzed compact man (slimmer than expected) in a smart black suit (off-the-peg Hugo Boss) and crisp white shirt (off-the-peg Dunhill) with light grey curlyish hair swept back from his prominent nose and brows.

At his side is his bodyguard Sean, and the Arcadia chief operating officer Ian Grabiner. Being fiftysomething suits him. Photos of a younger Green show him with an un-groomed fuzz of black hair halo-ing his head and an over keen expression. Now he has the sleek look of the tanned Euro men you see hanging out in St Tropez with their Eastern European girlfriends.

When I ask if he has any acquisitions on his radar, he hedges — “I look at opportunities as they arise” — but does offer this: “Ten years ago all the major fashion retailers were run by corporations. One hundred years ago retail was run by entrepreneurial people. Fashion needs flair, touch, passion, emotion, care.” In the past five years Debenhams, Bhs New Look, Selfridges and Arcadia have each been taken back into private ownership, suggesting that this is a significant retail trend.

Breezing through the Burton area at the Arcadia press show, Green fingers a sweater, cracks a few jokes and moves on to Miss Selfridge, where he congratulates the staff on a good collection, saving special praise for the lingerie. At the Wallis stand he homes in on some ribbed ponchos. “See these, I was in LA last week and these were flying out of the stores and it was 80 degrees outside, I want them in the stores now.” He spots the Wallis brand director Anne Secunda and slopes off with her for a head-to-head. “I’m seeing her later for a knit and coat meeting,” he confides. Green is notoriously hands-on; he personally oversees the knitwear and the themed Christmas goods at Bhs; he can sometimes be found in one of his stores at 2am talking to the shelf stackers.

Green is touchy-feely with the staff. He really talks to them, stroking a shoulder here, pinching a cheek there, listening. They in turn ask questions, and he knows all the answers. Yet if someone bores him he will walk away. His eye homes in on a video of Topshop’s latest catwalk show and he catches two old bearded men waltzing on stage wearing tailcoats and tutus. You can see he is thinking, “What the f*** is that?”, but is happy to admit that he leaves the marketing and branding of Topshop to the girls. As Stuart Rose told me (before they became rivals): “He knows what he doesn’t know, and that’s something not a lot of people know.”

“Look, lots of people think I just got out of a sputnik from somewhere and turned up,” says Green when I ask him why he chose clothing retail over, say, food retailing. “The thing is I’ve been manufacturing, importing and retailing clothes for 30 years. I know clothing. Could I turn my hand to anything else? Probably, but I don’t need to. I’ve been lucky. My timing has been good. Now I am one of the most profitable retailers in the world, that can’t be bad, can it?” he says smiling. ” Is the M&S challenge his ultimate acquisition? “I’ve shown that I can turn businesses like M&S around. I’ve got the depth of resources and expertise at my fingertips that M&S needs. All the non-food area needs sorting.” What about the much publicised new furniture range? “I haven’t even looked at the furniture,” he states baldly.

Stories about the way Green operates proliferate in the retail sector. There’s the (no doubt apocryphal) one about the knitwear designers at Bhs wearing lampshades on their head for a week so they might have a bright idea. As for his run-ins with City “snobs”, their expletive ridden exchanges are too blue for a family newspaper.

In the past couple of years, however, Green’s image has been rehabilitated. Attaining the “self-made billionaire” tag seems to have softened his edges. He has become well known for charitable gestures. “I want to start a retail academy,” he says. “I left school at 16 and went to work. Not everyone is academic. Not everyone wants to go to university.”

He says his wife is his best friend, and his eyes glow with pride when he speaks about his children. He tells me proudly that Brandon is a dab hand at poker; Green himself likes the occasional £25,000 spin on a roulette wheel. He could easily retire to Monaco and spend the rest of his life sailing the Med. “I would be bored to death, my work and my personal life are intertwined,” he says. I have to ask what it’s like being a billionaire. “Luxury, freedom. The ability to decide what I want to do and how I do it.” He still takes care of the pennies, though. “My wife bought me a £500 shirt the other week. I told her to take it back to the shop because it was too expensive.”

Does Green really not know about fashion? A week after his poncho prediction his stores are full of them, and even though the sun is out, girls on the street are wearing them in force. As for his next move, let the takeover games begin.

GREEN'S TOP BUSINESS TIPS

1 Absolute focus
2 Ability to iprove your own skills and develop yourself. It'snot a textbook thing.
3 Be passionate, committed
4 Financial acumen
5 Be a people person

Can Philip Green save M&S? E-mail debate@thetimes.co.uk