Branson. Tom Bower

at Freshfields, some Virgin executives suspected, would at some stage be consulted, but he only answered to Branson. Yet Branson’s vaunted declaration that ever since his Customs fraud, ‘Every single decision since has been made completely by the book’ was hard to dislodge.

      Neither director would be informed about Ken Berry’s approach four months later to Akira Ijichi in Tokyo. Berry, looking for $150 million for a 25 per cent stake in Virgin Music, insisted that their meetings had to remain secret. The Japanese accepted Berry’s explanation: ‘We want the money for expansion. To sign new artists.’ Ijichi did not realise that Branson needed the money to repay his debts after privatisation. The president of Pony Canyon, a subsidiary of Fujisankei, the giant Japanese media company, agreed that he would come to London after making preliminary inquiries. He was delighted to be bound by Berry’s request for secrecy.

      The privatisation of Virgin was the most delicate operation Branson had ever faced. He needed to conceal any negotiations with the new investors and plan how to minimise the inevitable antagonism in Britain.

      Four weeks later, in early July, Frank Kane, a financial journalist employed by the Sunday Telegraph, telephoned Will Whitehorn, Branson’s new spokesman. ‘I hear that Richard is intending to take Virgin private,’ said Kane, relying on a tip from a merchant banker.

      ‘I’ve talked to Richard about this and there’s nothing in it,’ replied Whitehorn convincingly. ‘Even if there was, we couldn’t say because of Stock Exchange rules.’ With that careful justification, Whitehorn smudged over the truth.

      ‘It’s the worst deal I’ve ever done in my life,’ Ken Berry was cursing to anyone within earshot in Virgin’s offices about the planned privatisation of the company. ‘All just to bail Richard out of his filthy, stupid deals.’

      Sitting on the Duende on Regent’s Canal with a group of bankers from Samuel Montagu and Abbott a few days later, Branson, dressed in jeans and barefoot, was staring at a hole in the window. ‘Someone tried to shoot me,’ he laughed. The bankers were unsure whether Branson was telling the truth or seeking to impress them. They harboured mixed feelings. Some were enthusiastic about the flippant schoolboy. Others had become disillusioned but, in the interests of earning their fees and future business, concealed their emotions. All agreed that Branson’s swift withdrawal from the stock market would terminate any chance of Virgin’s acceptance as a substantial, orthodox corporation. Ken Berry’s anger, everyone rightly assumed, referred to the huge loans which Virgin required to buy back its shares. No banker was aware of his journey to Tokyo.