Date of birth:18/7/1950
Industries: Music & Various
2006 est. wealth: £3bn
Few billionaires are as well known in England as Sir Richard Branson. Listed as 245th richest billionaire in the world in the Forbes Rich List 2006, his entrepreneurial flair has long kept him in the headlines. Branson’s latest endeavours include plans for a Virgin Medical Centre scheme which would establish a chain of super-surgeries for groups of GPs. Other future ventures include setting up a new company that will provide parents with the chance to bank their child’s stem cells. Born in 1950, his career started early with his own magazine, Student, which he published whilst still at Stowe school. He was only 16 but a year later he had also set up a charity, the Student Advisory Centre. His precocious talents got him noticed and by the time he was 20 he had been made the subject of a television documentary.
In the same year, 1970, he set up a mail order record business, called Virgin. A year later he had opened his first store in Oxford Street, rapidly followed by a record label in 1972. When Mike Oldfield was signed it was a huge coup, with Tubular Bells becoming one of the biggest sellers of the time. Likewise, when notorious band the Sex Pistols were shunned by bigger labels, Virgin snapped them up. Since that time, numerous top-selling artists have signed with the label, helping it become one of the top record companies in the world. In 1992 the Virgin Music Group was sold to Thorn EMI for $1billion.
Branson has expanded his empire in many successful directions. He has interests in air and rail travel, mobile telephony, retail, financial products, Internet access, drinks, hotels and leisure as well as the original music business. Today Virgin has over 200 companies in over 30 countries.
Along the way, Branson has become as famous for his daring exploits as for his business acumen. In 1986 he completed the fastest ever Atlantic crossing in a new boat, after one previous unsuccessful attempt. Then he repeated the trip, this time in a hot air balloon; but disaster struck, ending in rescue. Undeterred, his sense of adventure continued as he made many more, successful, record-breaking crossings. Elsewhere, he tried to win the bid for running the National Lottery in 1994 and 1999. Both bids failed, but the latter still turned out to be a great year as he was knighted for "services to entrepreneurship".
Branson's adventurous spirit only seems to grow with his successes. In 2004 he signed a £14 million contract to have five "spaceliners" built, which are to carry Virgin passengers into space by 2008. It seems that as far as Branson is concerned, not even the sky is the limit. October 2005 Branson launched the "Branson School of Entrepreneurship at CIDA City Campus" in South Africa.
In September 2006 Branson pledged to invest the profits of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains in research for environmentally friendly fuels, an investment estimated to be worth $3 billion.
Early 2007 has been a busy time for Branson, who raised more eyebrows with an announcement in January that he would fund a stem cell bank. Soon after that came the launch of Virgin Media, which provides UK customers with broadband, television, telephone and mobile phone services - not forgetting a fine portal website too...
