Dominic Chappell

This actually happened in March 2015. BHS was bought from Philip Green's Arcadia Group by a company called Retail Acquisitions, of which "former racing driver" Dominic Chappell became 90% owner at around the same time. According to Wikipedia, the deal was "£1 GBP and a £10,000,000 equity injection into BHS Group Ltd."

This was back in the news 13 months later after BHS was placed into administration, resulting in the closure of 164 stores and the loss of 11,000 jobs. It was also revealed that Philip Green had been called before the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, to explain a £571 million deficit in the company's pension scheme.

It subsequently transpired that instead of injecting new capital into the cash–strapped company, as agreed with Arcadia, Chappell had extracted £1,789,250 within three months of acquiring control. By his own admission, Chappell extracted a total of £2,627,643 during his 13 months in control of BHS.

Chappell was in the news yet again in August 2016, when he was banned from driving for six months, and fined, after pleading guilty to driving at over 63 mph in a 40 mph zone in Andover, Hampshire.

"Former racing driver" Dominic Chappell was born in 1966 in Sunbury on Thames, Surrey, and educated at Millfield School. He competed in British Formula Ford 2000, and British F3 in 1990, finishing runner up in the Class B Championship. He also competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in the GT1 class in 1994 (not classified), 1995 (did not finish) and 1996 (did not finish), and entered in the GT2 class in 1997 but failed to qualify. Before the collapse of BHS he had been declared bankrupt three times: in 1992, 2005, and 2009. His occupation in 1992 was given as "car salesman".

Chappell described media coverage of the BHS collapse as a "witch hunt".