Sir Tom sets off the charity crunch

When Sir Tom Hunter, the businessman and philanthropist who is often described as Scotland's richest man announced last year that he intended leaving more than £1bn to eradicate poverty, a host of charities jumped for joy. However, that was before the credit crunch struck. Yesterday Sir Tom's designer clothing chain, USC, went into administration, the latest in a line of failed and failing ventures.

While Hunter's fortune was estimated at over £1billion in the 2007 Sunday Times Rich List, that figure is now greatly reduced. Yes, donations to The Hunter Foundation (THF), which supports educational projects in Britain and in the developing world, have increased from £7.3 million for the year to March 2007 to £11 million this year, but Sir Tom, 47, who began his business empire selling trainers from the back of a van, has stated that any future donations will be linked to the profitability of his investment company, West Coast Capital.

And things are far from good with West Coast. Last month it abandoned its long-running interest in buying Flying Brands, a postal flower retailer, and in the summer it sold Qube, its loss-making shoe retailer, to JJB for £1. It was also forced to part with its 29 per cent stake in Dobbies, another garden centre chain, after losing a battle to block a rights issue that gave Tesco a controlling stake.

Perhaps Sir Tom's remark about how he wishes to dispose of his wealth - he once said: "My wife Marion and myself are going to leave this world pretty much as we came into it - pretty much with nothing" – may be more prescient than he had originally envisaged.