The Financial Times newspaper in a recent Retail article said ‘Shattered stores on London’s Oxford Street, very quickly transmit to closed factories in Bangladesh and Vietnam and stockpiles at the cotton farms of Central India.
The article was passed onto me by Mark Florman Chairman and CEO of specialist merchant bank Time Partners Limited which combines best private equity advice, creating solutions with a client first philosophy. Mark is a capitalist with compassion.
The article went on ‘At a time when retailers should be placing orders for their Spring 2021 collections thy are instead trying to unpick existing contracts.’
The lockdown crisis is opening up a chasm between businesses which are socially responsible and those which are not.
Peacocks a cheap clothes men’s, women’s and kids fashion wear brand has refused to pay for 43,000 pairs of jeans already sourced, sewn or shipped. Topshop owner Arcadia which is Philip Green’s business, will not pay for orders worth $2.5 million.
The fact known by these business bullies is that the Bangladeshi and Vietnamese clothing manufacturers simply cannot afford to sue them.
Clothing manufacture makes up the largest part of Bangladeshi’s export revenues and employs more than 4 million people, half of whom have now been laid off.
Not all high street retailers are bullies. H&M was one of the first clothing retailers to express their promise to support manufacturers and the workers who make its clothes by paying for all ordered goods including those still in production.
Primark the UK high street retailer initially said it would only pay the workers element of existing orders, amounting to 15% of the total value of £256 million worth of orders which Primark cancelled in Bangladesh which it then later revised.
Mark Florman Chairman of Time Partners our Podcast Professional of the week is passionate about raising awareness of socially responsible sustainable businesses. In 2015 he founded and is the President of the UK arm of the B (Lab) Corp which gives a ‘B Status’ award to companies which are socially responsible and sustainable.
Mark also worked with the London School of Economics to develop a way to measure the economic and social impact of business activity called the External Rate of Return. He would also like to see a Purpose Companies Act to replace section 172 Companies Act 2006.
Under existing Companies Act legislation businesses must serve the best interests of shareholders. Mark would like to see this replaced with an obligation that businesses must serve people and planet, as well as profit. He would also like to see Britain champion this new sustainable approach to business which could differentiate it from other countries making Britain attractive for wealthy foreign entrepreneurs with a social conscience to establish businesses in Britain.
Mark also has ideas which he has put to Boris Johnson Britain’s Prime Minister to set up an Economic Recovery Team post Covid 19 which will bring together the best of British businesses, investment, social enterprise and charity. Currently only the public sector is represented in Parliament and yet it is the private sector which employs over 85% of our work force many of whom have been badly hit by lockdown and are still struggling to get their work force back to full production.
During our interview we also touched upon what I see will be an ever-increasing divide between the haves and the have nots. In 2004, Mark co-founded the Centre for Social Justice the think tank tasked to eliminate poverty and exploitation. This tension between the haves and the have nots is now set to become substantially worse.
Mark is a compassionate man and has some innovative ideas of building a better Britain. If you support what he is doing please write to Deborah to tell us.
If you would to find out more about our Podcast Professionals or would like to join our project to create the definitive podcast library of information for the UHNW community contact deborah@garnhamfos.com or call 020 3740 7423.
Keep safe, keep strong and keep well.