'Green set for Baugur takeover'

Sir Philip Green is reportedly close to snapping up the debts of Icelandic investor Baugur over fears for thousands of UK retail jobs.

He is expected to purchase over £1 billion of the group's debt, which would see him have control over high street fashion chains Oasis and Karen Millen as well as House of Fraser and Hamleys, and majority stakes in Debenhams and Moss Bros.

Baugur UK Chairman Jon Asgeir Johannesson has said that selling the group's debts, even at rock bottom prices would be better than letting its UK firms collapse.

Sir Philip, who owns some of the UK's biggest retail chains, including Bhs and Topshop, met the Icelandic government after flying to Reykjavik on Friday for talks on buying the debt held by the group in the country's collapsed banks.

He said: "There was a discussion about my company acquiring the debt in these different banks."

Sir Philip added that business at the moment is "not too bad" and is more affected by the weather than the economic turmoil. But he said the "barrage" of negative news is "fundamentally unhelpful" to economic recovery.

"We have not yet seen significant corporate collapse. We haven't seen significant unemployment," he said.

"Do I think there are some pressures in the economy? Of course there are. But if we keep frightening everybody and terrorising everybody it will feed on itself."

He continued: "Things find a level. I think the market was probably being driven too fast, too far with too much credit being available in the first place."

He described the situation as "unprecedented", adding: "Everybody needs to get supportive of whatever actions get taken, to try and calm the waters for us to get back to something normal."

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