His bizarre behaviour persuaded me that the real Branson, his methods and his operation remained, despite all the publicity, unknown.
About ten weeks earlier, a tiny announcement in an obscure part of the Financial Times about a management resignation from Victory, Branson’s new clothing corporation, had alerted my curiosity. The senior director, the newspaper’s four-line report recorded, was departing after just five months because ‘there was no role for an executive chairman’.
Branson’s new company, I knew, was spiralling into debt. The management change could only have been caused by anxiety. Virgin’s official denials of problems fuelled my suspicions.
Hence, in January 1999, I began this book. Despite his suggestion that we should meet, I never heard from Branson personally, though I soon became aware of his attitude. Several people I approached for interviews told me that, ‘after checking’, they would prefer not to meet. I had the distinct impression that Branson or the Virgin press office was discouraging people. From other comments, it appeared that Branson was unwilling to either help or meet me.
On 22 October 1999, having made substantial progress, I nevertheless wrote to Branson asking ‘whether you would reconsider your position and agree to meet?’ On 6 December, explaining that my letter had only just arrived, he replied: ‘I have been called by a large number of people who you have interviewed about me. Most told the same story, namely that you have a fixed agenda and that no amount of persuasion or argument by them to the contrary appeared to have any influence on you. As it would therefore appear that you have pre-judged me, it would seem that little benefit or pleasure would come from our meeting.’
That was, I believed, impolite and inaccurate. By then, I had interviewed over two hundred people. Many were his sympathisers. I had deliberately sought their opinions to produce an objective book. Certainly, I posed as a devil’s advocate in testing his admirers’ opinions. The technique is reliable and is even favoured by Sir Richard himself. But there was no justification for concluding that my questions confirmed prejudice. On the contrary, I had striven to understand a man who declined my attempts to meet to hear his opinions.
In his letter of 6 December 1999, Branson did offer to answer any written questions and also requested to read the manuscript of the book. He would later express himself to be ‘very disappointed’ that I had not allowed him to vet and approve this book prior to publication.
On 11 January 2000, I submitted nine questions. On 18 February, he sent his replies. They contained one serious error, namely about the circumstances and timing of a Japanese investment in Virgin Music in 1989. The significance of Branson’s error will become apparent to the reader at the beginning of this book.
By February 2000, however, the relationship between Branson and myself had become complicated. Branson was upset by an article I had written in December 1999 in the Evening Standard about his bid for the National Lottery. He believed my comments to be defamatory.
As we exchanged letters about the article and I replied to his threat of commencing legal proceedings if I failed to publish an apology, I was reminded about his letter to the Spectator on 28 February 1998 protesting about another journalist, where he recorded, ‘I have never sued anyone to suppress criticism of myself or Virgin.’ Two years later, on 22 March 2000, that boast became redundant.
In an operation seemingly co-ordinated with The Times, a leather-clad motorcyclist served a writ issued by Branson while I was answering questions from a journalist who happened to telephone at the precise moment the writ was served. Branson’s action was considered of such importance that The Times prominently reported the writ on its front page the following day.
Of the many unusual aspects of Branson’s resort to legal action, few were more significant than his decision to sue me exclusively and not, as is customary, also the newspaper which published the article. Branson’s decision to deliberately exclude the newspaper was interpreted by my legal advisers as an attempt to undermine the publication of this book. The plan was obvious.
Confronted by the impossibility of matching Branson’s self-proclaimed fortune to finance a team of lawyers, I would have been forced to capitulate and apologise, and inevitably discredit my own book. Fortunately, Max Hastings, the Evening Standard’s editor, pledged in a prominent article to finance the defence of the piece which his newspaper had published.
At the time I wrote this book, there had been two biographies and one autobiography about Richard Branson. All three benefited from Sir Richard’s vetting and approval. I resisted that blessing. This book is offered as a balanced review of Britain’s most visible entrepreneur, an eager recipient of hero worship, trying to influence practically every aspect of British society, who, in his attempt to market a Virgin lifestyle, seeks the widest possible circle of influence.
Sir Richard Branson did not appreciate this unauthorised biography when it was originally published in 2000. Indeed, to prevent its publication, he took exception to a critical article which I had written for the London Evening Standard about his first bid for the National Lottery, and decided to issue a writ for defamation against myself, but not against the newspaper. Some interpreted this as an attempt to put me under financial pressure to settle the case in his favour. Had it succeeded, the credibility of this biography would have been destroyed even before its publication. Eventually, without my having offered any concession or agreeing to any of his demands, Sir Richard withdrew his complaint and his case was abandoned. The legacy was twofold. The rulings by Mr Justice Eady and the Court of Appeal during the lengthy hearings of Branson vs Bower have become enshrined as a cornerstone of British libel law. Newspapers, publishers, journalists and authors are, in some circumstances, now protected in publishing critical comment so long as the author wrote in good faith.
The second legacy was the generation of enormous publicity, which propelled the success of this book. Following his recent successes in the libel court, Sir Richard had apparently anticipated another scalp. Yet over the following months many concluded that he had scored a spectacular own-goal.
Throughout the world, those interested in the Branson phenomenon were alerted to an alternative interpretation of a remarkable career. Over the past eight years I have received a steady stream of enquiries and congratulations as a result of this biography of the controversial tycoon. With some nostalgia I recall listening to BBC Radio 4’s World at One and hearing Sir Richard’s triumphant boast outside the Royal Palaces of Justice in Fleet Street after his libel victory against Guy Snowden, the chairman of Camelot, a rival bidder for the original lottery licence. ‘My mother taught me to always tell the truth,’ Branson told his excited audience.
This book was to cast an objective interpretation on his career just as his bid for the National Lottery was being reconsidered after a bitter court case. To Branson’s distress, the original decision to award him the lottery licence was overturned. Partly, he knew, this book’s revelations had turned opinion against him. Now, eight years later, Branson’s recent activities, self-promotion and solecisms, especially during his bid for the distressed bank Northern Rock, have warranted an updated version of the original book.
Over the past eight years I have occasionally been invited to write articles for newspapers about Branson. Each article automatically provokes Branson to complain about ‘multiple inaccuracies’ and demand the publication of his version of the truth. Invariably, identical facts provoke starkly different interpretations. My articles published during his bid for Northern Rock especially provoked his ire. I did not think that his controversial past justified the government’s original decision to entrust over £50 million of taxpayers’ money to the Virgin group. For whatever reason, the government finally agreed with me. The loss of Northern Rock could be as grave a blow to Branson’s fortunes as his failure to win the Lottery licence.
Sir Richard nevertheless remains one of the world’s most popular tycoons. Countless ambitious and intelligent young people, aspiring to become successful