Listened to Jeremy Vine today & one of the topics was that Virgin Atlantic had asked for a government loan & that Sir Richard Branson had put up Necker Island as collateral.
I was disappointed at the amount of comments, including from a financial expert, that considered it “disgusting” that such a rich man should ask for money.
Let me make it clear that I am not a financial expert so please hold on to your sarcastic comments!
I have only glanced at Sir B’s finances as they appear in searches but I believe that he is self made rather than inheriting an already established business. His hard work has resulted in a group that has in the region of 70.000 employees - not too shabby!
He now lives on his own private island & is very rich. This seems to make him a target of jealousy rather than an example of what hard work can achieve & this concerns me. He is not the sole proprietor & Virgin Group has many other investors.
Sir B certainly has a great personal wealth so does not need to work at all. In fact he could easily afford to retire & not get involved in business at all. Lesser people would be happy to allow the companies to cease.
Easyjet has already secured a £600 million Treasury loan which went virtually unnoticed but when Virgin ask there seems to be a view that Sir B should provide it out of hos own pocket. Why? Because he is not (personally) a UK tax payer! What this has to do with anything is beyond me - I’m not a UK tax payer either as I choose to live elsewhere. This would not stop me having a UK business. Virgin Atlantic is based in the UK (as far as I can tell, even if 49% is owned by Delta & 31% by Air France/KLM). He does not want the cash to make up any shortfall in his personal income.
My personal view is that Sir B puts himself out there because he wants to preserve the jobs of his employees present & future & the welfare of their families.
I wonder how many families his detractors provide jobs & futures for?
RB effectively owns 51% of VA, the Air France/KLM share sale never went through as he changed his mind.
I think the problems are he’s a billionaire, 49% of VA is owned by a foreign airline who’ve already received a US bailout and he’s already asked for the money once and was turned down. He’ll get the money in the end but the UK government will make him sweat a bit.
I mean that had he has what he has because he had the ideas, took the risks & & made the sacrifices at the beginning when he did not have 70,000 people to help. They have jobs as a result of his efforts.
Then you have people like Sir Philip Green…
I mean that his skill is in making money out of other people’s talent. If he hadn’t spotted the potential of “Tubular Bells” he might never have made his first million, but he didn’t write or perform that.
And this is unique? Most record companies do the same (Sun Records springs to mind). I’m sure Mike Oldfield would have preferred to do his own production, distribution, publicity & accounting rather than make music.
In fact, most businesses turn someone’s skill into a marketable reality. Without someone else with different skills recognising the potential of others nothing will happen.
“Tubular bells” was not stolen but was the result of a mutually beneficial arrangement, but it needs someone to take the chance. It could have flopped which would not have stopped Mike Oldfield performing but would have affected a budding Branson.
Virgin Group pay taxes in the UK. Sir B’s personal income is not taxable in the UK & he is not asking for any personal payout so where HE pays his tax should not be an issue. It would be different if he was applying for a personal “furlough” payment due to covid. He personally won’t get a penny.
It is almost tax time here in France. As I understand it those of us who get an income from the UK make a tax declaration to the French government (mostly) & generally pay here.
Those whose pensions derive in the UK no longer pay tax there but still expect their fuel allowance.
The ‘self-made man’ or ‘rags to riches’ entrepreneur is one of capitalism’s most powerful myths - it’s ‘the American Dream’ (that Scott Fitzgerald comprehensively debunked in The Great Gatsby in the 1920s).
It’s rarely true in reality. While lots of disadvantaged people set up successful enterprises, they rarely make millions, let alone billions. Indeed, the research on this seems to indicate that you only make billions out of monopoly, not ordinary competitive business - and making millions generally requires at least one of: wealth to start with, a lot of luck, or corruption. There are multiple examples of all of these, and few counter-examples.
In Branson’s case, he certainly came form a very privileged background - top public schools, etc. His father was a top barrister and his mother was a ballet dancer, who later ran her own successful business; his grandfather was the Right Honourable Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson - and this family put a lot of money (and contacts, etc) behind the young Richard Branson, including paying off a tax-evasion charge - so he seems to have had a bit of all three of wealth, luck, and corruption.
I was astounded to find myself with a fuel allowance… it suddenly arrived one year… although I had certainly not claimed it… had no expectations… and the following year, it vanished just as suddenly…
I wonder if it is the “equation” used to work out who qualifies… which some folk object to…
Are Scaitcliffe & Stowe schools really “top” schools? His mum was first an air hostess before becoming an estate agent & writer, while his dad was a barrister, but a “top” one?
I cannot find mention of a tax evasion charge or that he was “corrupt”. I found this on biography.com -
"Richard Charles Nicholas Branson was born on July 18, 1950, in Surrey, England. His father, Edward James Branson, worked as a barrister. His mother, Eve Branson, was employed as a flight attendant. Richard, who struggled with dyslexia, had a hard time with educational institutions. He nearly failed out of the all-boys Scaitcliffe School, which he attended until the age of 13. He then transferred to Stowe School, a boarding school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England.
Still struggling, Branson dropped out at the age of 16 to start a youth-culture magazine called Student . The publication, run by students, sold $8,000 worth of advertising in its first edition, launched in 1966. The first run of 50,000 copies was disseminated for free, with Branson afterward covering the costs through advertising."
Perhaps some people would have preferred him to have got a job at his local KFC & never got involved in business.
But creative people are not very interested in money, except insofar as it enables them to continue to be creative.
According to what I have read, Branson’s musical taste can only be politely described as unsophisticated.
In fact, his great wealth is due to the fact that he never had a sentimental attachment to any of his businesses, but knew when to get out when the writing was on the wall. But the bigger you get, the greater the crash when you get it wrong. This time he got it wrong. Ordinary working people have already seen their tax money given away to bail out banks. Should they be expected to contribute to bailing out a billion dollar private business?
Your perception of Virgin Atlantic is slightly skewed.
It is not a “private business” at all.
He apparently cried when he sold Virgin Music to EMI.
He is asking for a loan which will be repaid, not a free hand-out.
I’m sure that all the Branson Bashers have never taken advantage of the skills of others & built their own houses & the tools to do so.
Richard Branson launched his first business at age 15. In 1972, he founded Virgin Records and went on to launch the Virgin Group conglomerate. Through this, he’s built an estimated $4.4 billion net worth.
Branson has got ‘form’ for asking for government bailouts (Virgin Trains), he sued the NHS (Virgin Care) when he didn’t win a contract, the island that he’s suggested as ‘collateral’ for any loan is vulnerable to hurricanes and he has had many business failures.
