Topshop's Green warns of "ugly" retail environment

By Rachel Sanderson

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Philip Green, owner of Bhs and the Arcadia group and one of Britain's most successful retailers, warned on Thursday of an "ugly" trading climate with no sign of an improvement.

Green, who owns the Topshop fashion chain, had little hope that Thursday's 25 basis point interest rate cut would alleviate consumer doldrums exacerbated by rising commodities prices and the credit crunch.

"The interest rate cut today, is it going to make any difference? In my opinion very little because there is a lot of underlying debt," he told Reuters at an industry conference.

"We actually planned for a soft April and we are actually a bit worse than we thought ... This is as tough as I've known it," he said.

Green said he couldn't say when he expected the climate to improve, shrugging off suggestions by rival retailer Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks and Spencer, who has predicted a slowdown could stretch until 2010.

"Until we get a run rate, until it is stabilising a little bit, until we can get a feel of how we are going, I don't know," he said.

The Bank of England cut interest rates for the third time in five months on Thursday to cushion the economy from the global credit squeeze, despite persistent worries about rising inflation.

At the World Retail Congress in Barcelona, retailers have debated the impact of the global credit crisis with some speculation focused on how to weather what is being forecast as a prolonged downturn.