Green tries to make friends: Lauren Mills, business correspondent at the Sunday Telegraph, wonders why Philip Green is suddenly so keen to explain himself to the men in pinstripes.(City Talk)

Philip Green, the billionaire owner of Bhs, is not known for being shy. His brutal approach to business has earned him a reputation as an arch deal merchant. Few retail connoisseurs doubt his ability to buy businesses on the cheap, strip out costs and sell them on for vast profits.

But despite his financial successes, there are still those who question his ability to manage businesses in the longer term.

Perhaps his detractors are just jealous. The fabulously wealthy Green has bad a difficult relationship with the City since the early 1990s when his Amber Day business ran into trouble. And he has been on a mission to prove his critics wrong ever since. …