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Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950 (1950-07-18) in Shamley
Green, Surrey, England), is an English entrepreneur, best known for his Virgin
brand of over 350 companies. His first successful business venture was at age 16,
when he published a magazine called Student; Branson then set up a record mail
order business in 1970, and then a chain of record stores in 1971 now known as
Virgin Megastores. With a flamboyant and competitive style, Branson's Virgin brand
grew rapidly during the 1980s as he set up Virgin Atlantic Airways and expanded the
Virgin Records music label. Today, his worth is estimated at over £4 billion
(equivalent to US$7.8 billion) according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2006.
 Education
Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School (now Bishopsgate School) until the age
of thirteen. He then attended Stowe School until he was fifteen. Branson has
dyslexia, resulting in poor academic performance as a student. He was the captain
of football and cricket teams, and by the age of fifteen he had started two
ventures that eventually failed: one growing Christmas trees and another raising
budgerigars.
At sixteen, Branson left school and moved to London, where he began his first
successful business, Student magazine. When he was seventeen, he opened his first
charity, the "Student Advisory Centre."
Record
business
Branson started his first record business after he travelled across the English
Channel and purchased crates of "cut-out" records from a record discounter. He sold
the records out of the boot of his car to retail outlets in London. He continued
selling cut-outs through a record mail order business in 1969. Trading under the
name "Virgin" he sold records for considerably less than the so-called "High
Street" outlets, especially the chain W. H. Smith. The name 'Virgin' was a selling
point because records were sold in a new condition (unlike in other shops where
records were being handled when listened to in record booths). At the time many
products were sold under restrictive marketing agreements which limited
discounting, despite efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to limit so-called resale price
maintenance. In effect Branson began the series of changes that led to large-scale
discounting of recorded music. Richard and some colleagues were discussing a new
name for his business when one suggested that it should be called 'Virgin' since
they were all virgins to business.
Virgin logo designed by Roger Dean for the fledgling Virgin Records labelBranson
eventually started a record shop in Oxford Street in London and, shortly after,
launched the record label Virgin Records with Nik Powell. Branson had earned enough
money from his record store to buy a country estate, in which he installed a
recording studio. He leased out studio time to fledgling artists, including
multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield.
In 1971, Branson was arrested and charged for selling records in Virgin stores that
had been declared as export stock. He settled out-of-court with UK Customs and
Excise with an agreement to repay the unpaid tax and fines. Branson's mother Eve
re-mortgaged the family home to help pay the settlement.
Virgin Records' first release was Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, which was a
best-seller and British LP chart topper. The company signed controversial bands
such as the Sex Pistols, which other companies were reluctant to sign. It also won
praise for exposing the public to obscure avant-garde music such as the krautrock
bands Faust and Can. Virgin Records also introduced Culture Club to the music
world. In the early 1980s, Virgin purchased the gay nightclub Heaven.
To keep his airline company afloat, Branson sold the Virgin label to EMI in 1992, a
more conservative company which previously had rescinded a contract with the Sex
Pistols. Branson is said to have wept when the sale was completed since the record
business had been the genesis of the Virgin Empire. He later formed V2 Records to
re-enter the music business.
Business
exploits
Branson formed Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984, launched Virgin Mobile in 1999,
Virgin Blue in Australia in 2000, and later failed in a 2000 bid to handle the
National Lottery.
In 1997, Branson took what many saw as being one of his riskier business exploits
by entering into the railway business. Virgin Trains won the franchises for the
former Intercity West Coast and Cross-Country sectors of British Rail. Launched
with the usual Branson fanfare with promises of new high-tech tilting trains and
enhanced levels of service, Virgin Trains soon ran into problems with the aging
rolling stock and crumbling infrastructure it had inherited from British Rail. The
company's reputation was almost irreversibly damaged in the late 1990s as it
struggled to make trains reliably run on time while it awaited the modernisation of
the West Coast Main Line, and the arrival of new rolling stock.
Front covers from Private Eye featuring Richard Branson. Left (8 September 2000):
caption reads: "I'm sorry, your winnings have been delayed"—referring to Virgin's
unsuccessful bid for the franchise to manage the UK National Lottery, and Virgin
Trains' poor time-keeping record. Right (29 December 2000): Richard Branson dressed
as Santa Claus, with the caption: "No-one believes in you anymore".Virgin acquired
European short-haul airline Euro Belgian Airlines in 1996 and renamed it Virgin
Express. In 2006 the airline was merged with SN Brussels. It also started a
national airline based in Nigeria, called Virgin Nigeria. Another airline, Virgin
America, is set to launch out of San Francisco International Airport in 2007.
Branson has also developed a Virgin Cola brand and even a Virgin Vodka brand, which
has not been a very successful enterprise. As a consequence of these lacklustre
performers and perceived obscure accounting practices, the satirical British
fortnightly magazine Private Eye has been critical of Branson and his companies
(see Private Eye image caption).
After the so-called campaign of "dirty tricks" (see expanded reference in Virgin
Atlantic Airways), Branson sued rival airline British Airways for libel in 1992.
John King, then-chairman of British Airways, counter-sued, and the case went to
trial in 1993. British Airways, faced with likely defeat, settled the case, giving
£500,000 to Branson and a further £110,000 to his airline and had to pay legal fees
of up to £3 million. Branson divided his compensation (the so-called "BA bonus")
among his staff.
On 25 September 2004, Branson announced the signing of a deal under which a new
space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, will license the technology behind
Spaceship One - funded by Microsoft co-Founder Paul Allen and designed by legendary
American aeronautical engineer and visionary Burt Rutan - to take paying passengers
into suborbital space. Virgin Galactic (wholly owned by Virgin Group) plans to make
flights available to the public by late 2009 with tickets priced at US$200,000.
Branson's next venture with the Virgin group is Virgin Fuels, which is set to
respond to global warming and exploit the recent spike in fuel costs by offering a
revolutionary, cheaper fuel for automobiles and, in the near future, aircraft.
Branson has stated that he was formerly a global warming skeptic and was influenced
in his decision by a breakfast meeting with Al Gore.
Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747Branson has been tagged as a "transformational leader" in
the management lexicon, with his maverick strategies and his stress on the Virgin
Group as an organization driven on informality and information, one that is
bottom-heavy rather than strangled by top-level management.
He was 9th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, worth just over £3 billion.
On 21 September 2006, Branson pledged to invest the profits of Virgin Atlantic and
Virgin Trains in research for environmentally friendly fuels. The investment is
estimated to be worth $3 billion.
On 4 July 2006, Branson sold his Virgin Mobile company to UK cable TV, broadband,
and telephone company NTL/NTL:Telewest for almost £1 billion. As part of the sale,
the company pays a minimum of £8.5 million per year to use the Virgin name and
Branson became the company's largest shareholder. The new company was launched with
much fanfare and publicity on 8 February 2007, under the name Virgin Media. The
decision to merge his Virgin Media Company with NTL was in order to integrate both
of the companies' compatible parts of commerce. Branson used to own three quarters
of Virgin Mobile, whereas now he owns 15 percent of the new Virgin Media
company.
In 2006, Branson formed Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation an entertainment company
focussed on creating new stories and characters for a global audience. The Company
was founded with author Deepak Chopra, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and entrepreneurs
Sharad Devarajan and Gotham Chopra.
Branson also launched the Virgin Health Bank on 1 February 2007, offering
parents-to-be the opportunity of storing their baby's umbilical cord blood stem
cells in private and public stem cell banks after their baby's birth.
On 9 February 2007, Sir Richard Branson announced the setting up of a new Global
science and technology prize – The Virgin Earth Challenge – in the belief that
history has shown that prizes of this nature encourage technological advancements
for the good of mankind. The Virgin Earth Challenge will award $25 million to the
individual or group who are able to demonstrate a commercially viable design which
will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each
year for at least ten years without countervailing harmful effects. This removal
must have long term effects and contribute materially to the stability of the
Earth’s climate.
Sir Richard also announced that he would be joined in the adjudication of the Prize
by a panel of five judges - all world authorities in their respective fields: Al
Gore, Sir Crispin Tickell, Tim Flannery, Jim Hansen and James Lovelock. The panel
of judges will be assisted in their deliberations by The Climate Group and Special
Advisor to The Virgin Earth Prize Judges, Steve Howard.
World record
attempts
Richard Branson has been involved in a number of world
record-breaking attempts since 1985, when in the spirit of the Blue Riband he
attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest recorded time. His first
attempt in the "Virgin Atlantic Challenger" led to the boat capsizing in
British waters and a rescue by RAF helicopter, which received wide media
coverage. Some newspapers called for Richard Branson to reimburse the British
government for the cost of his rescue. In 1986, his "Virgin Atlantic
Challenger II" made a successful crossing, beating previous records by two
hours. This was followed a year later by the epic hot air balloon crossing of
the same ocean in "Virgin Atlantic Flyer". This was not only the first hot-air
balloon to cross the Atlantic, but was the largest ever flown at 2.3 million
cubic feet (65,000 m³) capacity, reaching speeds in excess of 130 miles per
hour (209 km/h).
In January 1991, Branson crossed the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Arctic Canada, the
furthest distance of 6,700 miles. Again, he broke all existing records, with speeds
of up to 245 miles per hour in a balloon of 2.6 million cubic feet (73,600 m³).
Between 1995 and 1998 Richard Branson, Per Lindstrand and Steve Fossett, made a
number of attempts to circumnavigate the globe by balloon. In late 1998 they made a
record-breaking flight from Morocco to Hawaii but were unable to complete a global
flight before Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones in Breitling Orbiter achieved the
first circumnavigation in March 1999.
Television, film, and
print
Branson has guest starred, usually playing himself, on several television shows,
including Friends, Baywatch, Birds of a Feather, Only Fools and Horses, The Day
Today, a special episode of the comedy Goodness Gracious Me and Tripping Over.
Branson made several appearances during the nineties on the BBC Saturday morning
show Live & Kicking, where he was referred to as 'the pickle man' by comedy act
Trev and Simon (in reference to Branston pickle). Branson also appears in a cameo
early in XTC's "Generals and Major's" video.
He also was the star of a reality television show on Fox called The Rebel
Billionaire, in which sixteen contestants were tested for their entrepreneurship
and sense of adventure. It did not succeed as a rival show to Donald Trump's The
Apprentice and only lasted one season.
His high public profile often leaves him open as a figure of satire — the 2000 AD
series Zenith featured a parody of Branson as a super villain, as the comic's
publisher and favoured distributor and the Virgin group were in competition at the
time. He is also caricatured in The Simpson's episode "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" as
the tycoon Arthur Fortune, and as the ballooning megalomaniac Richard Chutney (a
pun on Branson) in Believe Nothing. The character Grandson Richard 39 in Terry
Pratchett's Wings is modelled on Branson.
He has a cameo appearance in several films, Around the World in 80 Days (2004)
where he played a hot air balloon operator, Superman Returns, where he was credited
as a "Shuttle Engineer", alongside his son Sam, with Virgin Galactic-esque
commercial suborbital shuttle at the centre of his storyline. He also had a cameo
in James Bond film Casino Royale in which Branson played a passenger going through
airport security. He makes a number of brief and disjointed appearances in the cult
classic documentary Derek and Clive Get the Horn which follows the exploits of
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore recording their last comedy album.
In early 2006 on Rove Live, Rove McManus and Sir Richard pushed each other into a
swimming pool fully clothed live on TV during a "Live at your house" episode.
Branson is a Star Trek fan, so much that he named his new spaceship VSS Enterprise
in honour of the famous Star Trek ships, and in 2006, offered actor William Shatner
a free ride on the inaugural space launch of Virgin Galactic.
Politics
Branson was honoured by the Conservative government in the 1980s, and was briefly
given the post of "litter tsar" by Margaret Thatcher – charged with "keeping
Britain tidy." He was again seen as close to the government when the Labour Party
came to power in 1997. In 2005 he declared that there were only negligible
differences between the two main parties on economic matters. He reputedly
considered running for Mayor of London in 2004, but decided not to. Branson has
described himself as a libertarian.
Business
practices
Branson's business empire is owned by a complicated series of offshore trusts and
companies. The Sunday Times stated that his wealth is calculated at £3.065 billion;
if he were to retire to his Caribbean island and liquidate all of this he would pay
relatively little in tax.
When Virgin Mobile launched its service in Canada on 1 March 2005, the use of
"naughty nurses" in its advertising triggered "The Registered Nurses Association of
Ontario" to demand an apology from Branson and an immediate stop to the campaign,
and called on members to boycott Virgin Mobile. Virgin Mobile spokeswoman Paula
Lash said the company never intended to offend anyone, but was not about to pull
the advertising.
When Virgin Mobile included "super hot holiday" wrapping paper with the December
2005 issue of youth magazine Vice, as part of the Hot Box promotion, the wrapping
paper contained illustrated holiday angels, where the male angel is touching the
female's breast, while the female angel has her hand on the male's genitals. Famous
Players stopped its partnership deal with Virgin Mobile after a complaint.
Honours
In 1993, Branson received the honorary degree of Doctor of Technology from
Loughborough University.
He became Sir Richard Branson when he was knighted by the Queen in 1999 for
"services to entrepreneurship".
Branson is the patron of several charities, including the International Rescue
Corps and Prisoners Abroad, a registered charity which supports Britons who are
detained outside of the UK.
Sir Richard appears at No. 85 on the 2002 list of "100 Greatest Britons" (sponsored
by the BBC and voted for by the public). Sir Richard also ranks No. 86 on Channel
4's 2003 list of "100 Worst Britons". Sir Richard was also ranked in 2007's Time
Magazine Top 100 Most Influential People in the World.
Source : Some of the information
on this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the
GNU Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com .
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Richard
Branson - Generator - Biography
