Richard Branson

British entrepreneur

In 2023 Branson was listed in Forbes magazine as the 789th-richest person in the world at that time, with an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion. A self-made man, Branson became a very successful entrepreneur through a wide variety of business ventures, including music sales, music production, air and rail transportation, banking, and soft drinks.

Sources of wealth: Entertainment industry; banking; transportation systems

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; children; charity

Early Life

Richard Branson was born on July 18, 1950, in Shamley Green, Surrey, England. His father, Edward James Branson, was an attorney; his mother, Eve, was a former airline flight attendant. Branson’s parents were loving and supportive, and his mother was fond of setting challenging goals for him. Branson was educated in boarding schools, initially Scaitcliffe Preparatory in Windsor Great Park and subsequently Stowe in Buckinghamshire. He did not finish secondary school or go on to attend college. Branson had dyslexia, a learning disorder that results in difficulty with reading and spelling, and he performed poorly in academics. However, he was popular in school because of his ability to converse effectively and connect with others.

First Ventures

Branson’s first significant business venture occurred in 1967, when he and a childhood friend established Student, a periodical focused on the interests of secondary school and college students. Student was notable because it seemed to bring out the best in Branson’s can-do nature. He secured interviews with many notable figures of the time, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono; convinced numerous large corporations to advertise in the periodical; and also managed to get arrested. The arrest was a result of his advertising venereal disease counseling and condom availability in Student. The police alleged that Branson violated two statutes, the 1889 Indecent Advertisements Act and the 1917 Venereal Disease Act. He was acquitted on the charge related to the Venereal Disease Act but was later convicted on the Indecent Advertisements Act charge and sentenced to pay a token fine equivalent to $14.

Branson’s next significant business venture was the opening of a record store in London in 1969.

He expanded to mail-order record sales the following year and eventually opened additional stores, ultimately creating the huge Virgin megastore chain of music shops. This business venture also resulted in Branson’s arrest after British customs officials charged him with selling nontaxed records, which he claimed to export. Branson settled out of court by paying the required customs duties and penalties.

Mature Wealth

Throughout the 1970s, Branson expanded his line of Virgin record shops, opening stores throughout the United Kingdom and ultimately throughout the world. The stores boasted extensive inventory and an informal atmosphere that appealed to young people. This formula proved successful and was the start of the Virgin empire.

In 1971, Branson bought a country manor in Chipton-on-Cherwell near Oxford, England, with the intention of converting the home into a recording studio. He felt there was a need for a more relaxed environment in which music artists could record. He also saw the potential for making a profit. Later that year, Mike and Sally Oldfield arrived at the manor to make a recording. Mike Oldfield’s choice of the manor as a recording location was fortunate for Branson because Oldfield went on to record the multiplatinum Tubular Bells album at the manor. Tubular Bells earned a great deal of money for the new Virgin Records label that Branson launched in 1972. Over the years, income from sales of Tubular Bells would pull the Virgin Group, Ltd., back from the brink of bankruptcy and provide vital capital for the establishment of new business ventures.

Throughout the 1970s, Virgin Records struggled to stay solvent. Mike Oldfield was a consistent earner, but other artists did not prove as successful, and in 1980 the company lost $13.5 million. This financial picture changed drastically in 1982, when Virgin Records signed Boy George and Culture Club to the label. That year, the company earned a profit of $3 million, and in 1983, profits climbed to $16.5 million. The little Virgin label that other music publishers had derided was now a major force in the record industry.

Branson established Virgin Atlantic Airlines in 1984 with a single leased Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Virgin Atlantic initially had only one route, from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Gatwick Airport. The maiden flight from Gatwick to Kennedy started with a bang, literally, when one of the jet’s four large engines ingested birds on takeoff and had to be shut down. Not to be deterred, Branson continued to move forward, ultimately building Virgin Atlantic into a profitable and popular airline. Along the way, he had to endure a lengthy legal battle with British Airways. Branson accused British Airways of libel, and the Virgin Records label had to be sold in order to raise capital to keep the airline viable. The lawsuit against British Airways concluded with Branson and Virgin Atlantic settling for more than $900,000 in damages.

In 1986, Branson made the decision to publicly trade stock in the Virgin Group. A huge level of interest accompanied this initial public stock offering. Unfortunately, the stock did not appreciate as hoped. In addition, Branson did not like the additional oversight and direction that the operation of a public company entailed. Consequently, in late 1987 all issued stock was bought back at the original purchase price and Virgin once again became a private company.

In 1991, Virgin Records signed Janet Jackson for a record $25 million single-album deal. The signing of an artist for a single record instead of several was unheard of and the music industry perceived this deal as extremely risky. However, Virgin Records continued to prosper and began looking to purchase another label, Thorn/EMI, in order to gain control of this firm’s lucrative record rights inventory. Ironically, when Virgin Atlantic Airlines fell on hard economic times, it was Thorn/EMI that purchased the Virgin recording label for an astounding $1 billion. This huge infusion of cash allowed Virgin Atlantic Airlines to survive and gave Branson the financial wherewithal to continue expanding his empire.

The 1990s and early 2000s found Virgin expanding into a very diverse collection of business ventures, including Virgin Cola, a soft drink company; Virgin Money, a banking and investment company; Virgin America, an American-based airline; Virgin Mobile, a telecommunications company; Virgin Trains, a British rail provider; and Virgin Galactic, a space tourism company. Virgin Cola did not pan out, and Virgin America was sold to Alaska Air in 2016 amid increasing US airline consolidation. Although all of the ventures are significant in some way, Virgin Trains and Virgin Galactic are probably the most intriguing. Virgin Trains is Branson’s attempt to revitalize and modernize the British rail system. By 2009, Virgin was managing a significant portion of Britain’s rail transportation, with the west of England served by a modern high-speed train system designed and implemented by the company. However, when Virgin's contract ended in 2019 it was not renewed, and the company ceased operating trains in the UK in December of that year.

Virgin Galactic was Branson’s attempt to beat the government at its own game—namely, spaceflight. In 2004, Branson’s partners in Virgin Galactic, Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft Corporation, and aircraft designer Burt Rutan, won the Ansari X prize for conducting the first civilian launch of a reusable space vehicle twice within a two-week period. Allen and Rutan were awarded $10 million for their efforts. Rutan also designed a spacecraft in which Virgin Galactic planned to take clients on brief spaceflights. On December 7, 2009, SpaceShipTwo was rolled out in the Mohave Desert—the first public appearance of a commercial passenger spacecraft. Tragically, after more than fifty flights, the craft broke up on October 31, 2014, as a result of human error; a replacement SpaceShipTwo was unveiled on February 19, 2016. After a 2018 test flight saw the craft first reach suborbital space and a 2019 mishap regarding a seal led to alterations to one of its stabilizers, it successfully reached suborbital space for the first time with a full crew after detaching from a carrier craft in July 2021. Branson himself was aboard for the flight, which touched back down less than twenty minutes later, meaning that he had just beat his main space tourism competitor, Jeff Bezos, into suborbital space.

Despite these high-profile successes for Virgin Galactic, some of Branson's other ventures, namely Virgin Atlantic and other airlines in the Virgin Group, struggled in the early 2020s amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic downturn. Travel restrictions and other pandemic-related developments led to thousands of layoffs in these companies between 2020 and 2023. While Branson was criticized in March 2020 for asking Virgin Atlantic employee to take eight weeks of unpaid time off as the impact of the pandemic became evident, he also put up his private holding in the British Virgin Islands, Necker Island, as collateral in order to help save the airline from bankruptcy.

On many occasions Branson publicly stated a desire continue to expand his enterprises whenever the Virgin Group had money. This formula proved highly effective for the Virgin empire, which in 2023 employed more than sixty thousand people in a highly diverse collection of companies. Branson often described himself as a serial entrepreneur, as opposed to a corporate executive. He regularly licensed the Virgin brand name to subsidiary owners and, even in the companies in which Virgin did have an ownership stake, preferred to delegate operations management.

Legacy

Richard Branson made significant impacts on each of the industries into which he ventured. By some estimates, Branson started over five hundred companies and about half survived. Yet from music to airlines and on to spaceflight, Branson raised the bar of quality and competitiveness. Consumers benefited greatly from Branson’s Virgin Group by receiving higher quality and lower prices.

Like many ultrarich individuals, Branson often engaged in philanthropic efforts. He used his money to build medical clinics in Africa and, in 2007, pledged $25 million to fund the Virgin Earth Challenge, an award designed to stimulate innovation in the sequestration of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere. Though eleven organizations were named as finalists for the prize, some investment funds were raised, and others were inspired to launch similar challenges, by 2019 the Virgin Earth Challenge had been controversially discontinued without the prize having been awarded. Branson also occasionally drew criticism for not paying income tax in the United Kingdom due to his residency in the British Virgin Islands.

Branson was also instrumental in bringing together a group of worldly intellectuals known as the Elders, including South African leaders Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu as well as Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations. The Elders sought to objectively solve difficult global conflicts.

Bibliography

Bower, Tom. Branson. London: HarperCollins UK, 2009.

Branson, Richard. Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur. London: Virgin Books, 2008.

Branson, Richard. Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.

Branson, Richard. Losing My Virginity: Richard Branson, the Autobiography. London: Virgin Books, 2007.

Branson, Richard. Screw It, Let’s Do It: Fourteen Lessons on Making It to the Top while Having Fun and Staying Green. London: Virgin Books, 2008.

Dearlove, Des. Business the Richard Branson Way: Ten Secrets of the World’s Greatest Brand Builder. Chichester, England: Capstone, 2007.

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Masunaga, Samantha. "Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic Crew Go to the Edge of Space and Back." Los Angeles Times, 11 July 2021, www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-07-11/virgin-galactic-richard-branson-space-flight. Accessed 4 Aug. 2021.

"Richard Branson." Forbes, 6 Mar. 2023, www.forbes.com/profile/richard-branson/?sh=16b635846ff5. Accessed 6 Mar. 2023.

Wachman, Richard. "Virgin Brands: What Does Richard Branson Really Own?" Observer. Guardian News and Media, 7 Jan. 2012. Web. 24 June 2016.

Ziady, Hanna. "Richard Branson Offers His Island as Collateral as Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia Face Collapse." CNN, 21 Apr. 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/business/virgin-australia-richard-branson/index.html. Accessed 6 Mar. 2023.