Richard Branson is considered the most successful British entrepreneur. Without a high school diploma, he became a multi-billionaire. Learn more about the success story of the entrepreneur.
Richard Branson is a personality who does not hide his success. Get to know what is probably Britain's most enigmatic entrepreneur. The 65-year-old has built up a corporate empire on his own. Currently, Forbes Magazine estimates his wealth at 4.9 billion dollars (as of 2015). But during his school years, it didn't look as if Branson would one day become the exceptional figure of British entrepreneurship. Today, the billionaire is the most successful entrepreneur on the island.
The early years of Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicolas Branson OBE was born on July 18, 1950, in Blackheath, London. Branson is dyslexic and has great difficulties at school. At the age of 16, he therefore leaves secondary school without graduating. Despite his reading and spelling difficulties, he publishes a student magazine after school.
Among others, well-known authors such as John Le Carré and Jean-Paul Sartre published in the paper with the title "Student," yet the magazine proved to be a financial failure. But such setbacks could not stop Richard Branson.
From record retailer to multi-billionaire
In 1970, the then 20-year-old Branson founded the Virgin company. He began shipping records and expanded the business to include local record stores. In 1971, the young entrepreneur made his first acquaintance with the law. After his tax-saving trick of first exporting records to Belgium and then immediately importing them back to Great Britain was exposed, he spent a night in custody and had to pay a large fine.
He nevertheless continues to expand his company and founds a music studio. The first big coup for Virgin Records is the discovery of the then unknown Mike Oldfield. Branson signs the musician to a contract. The first album Tubular Bells sells 5 million copies and makes Branson a millionaire. In the following years, Virgin Music works with music legends such as Phil Collins, Genesis and the Rolling Stones. The record business laid the foundation for all further ventures.
Virgin becomes a brand
Richard Branson founded numerous other companies under the Virgin umbrella brand. Virgin Airways which can be traded in download exness, nightclubs, travel and real estate agencies, Virgin Fuel - a company focused on renewable energies - Virgin Radio and Virgin Galactic for short trips into space are just a small sample of the entrepreneurial activities. Later, Branson was a member of Tony Blair's advisory board, and in December 1999 Queen Elizabeth II knighted Branson. But it was not only in the entrepreneurial field that Richard Branson made a name for himself.
Richard Branson - self-made man or dazzler?
For many decades, Richard Branson was the darling of business editors. He is the British example of the "dishwasher" who made the rise to billionaire. Hardly any industry was safe from the visionary entrepreneur.
But since 2014, the biography "Branson: Behind the Mask," written by Tom Bower, has been scratching at the image of the billionaire bon vivant. Bower doubts that Branson is actually as rich as the magazines estimate. He claims that much of the information has been put into the world by Branson himself and can hardly stand up to scrutiny. After all, the Virgin corporate network is almost impossible to penetrate.
Tom Bower assumes that Richard Branson owns only four to six companies. In most of the others, he is said to hold only small shares or to collect license fees. He considers the Virgin empire to have shrunk considerably and sees the self-made man on the decline. Companies like the airline have long since been beaten by competitors like Ryanair or Easyjet, he says. Virgin Galactic is proving to be a costly vision that will only bring high losses, even in the long term.
Conclusion:
Without a high school diploma, Richard Branson became Britain's best-known entrepreneur.
From a mail-order record company, the British rebel formed a corporate empire that is represented in almost every industry.
His visionary ideas are not always met with approval.
The flamboyant entrepreneur used his sporting ambition to present his company long before Red Bull closely linked competitive sports and advertising.