[3][4][5] In 1984, Hinchliffe led a management buyout of the Sheffield department store chain Wades, then suffering a £2m deficit, from Asda with a £200,000 stake.
[3][4] In the early 1990s, the West Midlands fraud squad arrested Hinchliffe without charge when investigating another company, WB Industries, who he had had property dealings with.
[1][4] Brands acquired at the pace of around one a month included clothing stores Sock Shop, Red or Dead, Contessa, and Oakland menswear,[4] Torq jewellers, and the shoe shops Trueform, Saxone, Manfield, and Freeman Hardy and Willis, though only fashion chain Red or Dead was profitable.
[1][3][9] Facia expanded into continental Europe in March 1996 when they acquired the German Bata Shoes chain and renamed it Millennium.
[11][12] Hinchliffe's strategy was said to be buying well-known but apparently underperforming brand names, centralise warehouses and distribution, and upgrade stores,[2][4] but also involved delaying payments to suppliers and channelling money to his private company.
[3] A new headquarters was being built in Chelsea in 1996 where Laura Ashley's design HQ used to be, including a "high street" of all the Facia branches.
[3][4] He bought Knoydart estate, west Highlands from Sheffield United chairman Reg Brealey's Titaghur company in 1998, with Christopher Harrison, the finance director of Facia.
United Mizrahi Bank decided to withdraw from lending, auditors including Deloitte and Touche declined to sign off the 1994/5 accounts for Sock Shop and Salisbury's, and the former owners and leasers of Saxone, Sears withdrew support.
[9] He owned 15% of Sheffield United football club and was on the board of directors; he attempted to become chairman but resigned in 1996 when Facia collapsed.
[17] Hinchliffe was brought in by the Smith family, owners of Alexander Seven Marketing, to buy Hoyland Fox, a Goldthorpe-based umbrella company.
The Hinchliffes tried to gain control over Hoyland Fox in early 2008 due to what they said were disputed expenses and false invoices, but the Smiths put the company into receivership by withdrawing funds.
In March 2010, Hinchliffe and his wife were found guilty by Judge Hazel Marshall in the Chancery Division of the High Court of "conspiring with intent" to take over the company when acting as agents for the Smith family.
[1] Prior to being jailed in 2001, Hinchliffe lived in a villa, Long Acres, in Dore, Sheffield, collecting over 50 classic cars, driving a Mercedes with number plate SH1, and buying the former helicopter of Gerald Ratner to use to fly to meetings.