“I don’t need a press office,” says Andrew Perloff when Retail Week’s call is put straight through to him after it emerged that he’d made an offer to buy Beales.

Andrew Perloff

It’s debatable whether the outspoken property tycoon does or doesn’t need a PR, given he is as known for his colourful remarks as he is for his property endeavours. But he tells Retail Week: “I say what I think.”

Perloff is in the retail news after the board at department store Beales agreed to a bid of £1.23m – about half of the retailer’s market capitalisation as of yesterday – from English Rose, Perloff’s investment vehicle.

Perloff is chairman of property investment company Panther Securities, which is Beales’ biggest shareholder, owning a 29.7% stake in the business and the freeholds of 10 of the retailer’s 30 stores.

A statement from Beales said the offer was “disappointing” and that in ”different circumstances” it could have “achieved a price that would value the business and assets of Beales more fully”.

So who is Perloff? He started his career in property as an estate agent for in the early 1960s, a move that is likely to have fired his passion for property given his 50 years’ experience within the sector, including 35 years as a director of a public listed company, mainly as Panther’s chairman, according to the firm’s website.

It also states that Perloff has “significant experience of corporate activity including several contested take-over bids” and has served on the board of directors of six other listed firms.

‘Foolish to upset your landlord’

No stranger to controversy, Perloff hit the news last July when he gave a heated response to Beales’ removal of Panther Securities’ representative non-independent, non-executive director Simon Peters – from its board.

The decision provoked Perloff to say: “I have long held the view that: 1) It is foolish to upset your landlord. 2) It is foolish to upset those that provide you with finance. 3) It is foolish for a quoted company to upset its largest shareholder. 4) It is foolish to sack a director who is knowledgeable, well connected and who does not charge a salary or any expenses.

“In one fell swoop Beales has managed all of these, which must be some type of record. It is hard to understand their logic.”

Beales said that directors of the company had exercised their powers to remove Peters after it decided that there was “no longer a necessity for a Panther representative on the board of Beales”.

Perloff, who says he’s worked for himself since the mid 1960s, describes himself as a workaholic.

When asked what his interests are outside of work he’s quick to respond: “My life is work.” However, if Perloff gets any spare time, he spends it with his wife, children and grandchildren. He says he’s a good boss, stating that many of his employees have worked for him for years.

Scottish referendum

Beales chief executive Michael Hitchcock describes Perloff as an “eccentric guy”, adding that “I warm to his eccentricity”.

Perloff is an Ukip donor, with his company Panther Securities giving £17,500 to the party last year. The business’s interim report said: “At our Annual General Meeting held on 18 June 2014, the resolution I submitted to donate £17,500 to the UK Independence Party was hotly debated. The voting went to a poll resulting in the resolution being passed.”

Perloff also garnered attention last year with his comments on the Scottish referendum, which he made in a section named Chairman’s Ramblings in Panther Securities’ interim results.

He said: “Why would any faction of a social club resign when all the other members contribute £1,600 per year per person to their particular faction and have been further browbeaten to offer further incentives to these malcontents?

“Perhaps now the English can have a referendum as to whether we wish to keep the Scots in and whilst we are at it, the Irish and Welsh as well! Why should the Scots have a one-way bet?”

Perloff, who, according to the Daily Mail, chaired Panther Securities’ AGM dressed as a High Court judge in a mock-up courtroom at Wimbledon Studios, also waded into a debate on Starbuck’s tax-avoidance, saying that the firm gave jobs to 8,500 people and should not be subject to “taxation by media”. He saidt there had been a “witch hunt”, according to the BBC.

If the shareholders agree to Perloff’s offer, he says he will conduct a review of its store portfolio. One thing is for sure, expect more quips from one of property’s most colourful characters.