Table of Contents
Richard Branson net worth
Career
Awards & Achievements
Early Life
Personal Life
Politics
One of the top ten most influential persons in the world, this tycoon is worth an estimated $4.2 billion and ranks as the fourth wealthiest man in the United Kingdom.
He has also made guest appearances on many TV shows and acted in a few movies where he portrayed himself. Branson, an enormous Star Trek enthusiast, became a household name because of the success of his book, How I Lost My Virginity.
He has won several accolades and is a current supporter of many international organisations, including Prisoners Abroad and the International Rescue Corps. Please keep scrolling to learn more about this person’s background and accomplishments.
Richard Branson Net Worth
The estimated net worth of Sir Richard Branson, a British businessman, philanthropist, and media figure, is $5 billion. The Virgin Group, of which Richard Branson is CEO, is the source of his wealth.
The Virgin Megastores, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Mobile, and Virgin Galactic are all parts of Richard Branson’s commercial empire. Besides being an actor and philanthropist, Richard is a household name for his many cameos in film and television.
Richard Branson Career
- At the height of England’s music and drug scene in 1972, Branson constructed a little recording studio in Oxfordshire. His debut release for the label was a song titled “Tubular Bells.”
- The contributions of these bands would significantly enhance the success of Virgin Records.
- In 1980, while still riding high on the success of Virgin Records, he created a new business in the travel and tourist sector under the name Voyager Group.
- In 1984, he expanded his business by establishing his airline consortium and naming it Virgin Atlantic. Subsequently, he launched a network of retail locations that were branded Virgin Megastores. That does not imply, however, that he had a spotless track record; the businesses he ran went through their fair share of ups and downs, including problems with cash flow.
- In 1992, the Virgin Group was sold to THORN EMI for a price of one billion dollars due to the significant financial problems it was experiencing. Even though he was devastated, he persisted in his career in the music business.
- He started the record company V2 in 1996, which is still strong today. Some artists he has signed to the label include Tom Jones and Powder Finger.
- On September 25, 2004, Branson announced his ambitions to create a new space tourism business under the name “Virgin Galactic.” Branson would be assisted in this endeavour by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, and Burt Rutan, an experienced aerospace engineer. Additionally, he had a minor part in the film “Around the World in Eighty Days,” which was released in the same year.
- Branson founded the Virgin Health Bank on Valentine’s Day in 2007 to assist pregnant parents in banking stem cells for the future. In addition, it allows parents to decide whether or not they would want to preserve their child’s umbilical cord.
Richard Branson Awards & Achievements
- In recognition of his work on space transportation systems, the International Space Transport Association presented him with the 2011 ISTA Prize on November 14.
Richard Branson Major Works
- He is the head honcho at Virgin Group, which controls over 400 businesses in 30 countries. Among the many branches of his enterprise are the railroad, the airline, the mobile phone, the safari park, and the space travel industry.
- His autobiography, “Losing my Virginity,” details his rise from poverty to wealth. David Mirkin and Steven Paul converted the novel into a biopic and it immediately became a worldwide bestseller.
Richard Branson Early Life
- Branson was born to a ballet dancer and air hostess Eve Branson and attorney Edward James Branson (1918-2011) in Blackheath, London. His younger sisters, Vanessa and Lindy Branson, are named after him. Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson was the man’s grandpa, and he served as a judge on the High Court of Justice and a member of the Privy Council.
- John Edward Branson, his third-great-grandfather, emigrated from England to India in 1793; his father, Harry Wilkins Branson, followed him to Madras a few years later. His ancestors had been in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, since at least 1793, so that’s how long his family had been there.
- Finding Your Roots revealed that Branson, via marriages, has 3.9% South Asian (Indian) DNA. Sometime later, he said that an Indian woman called Ariya was one of his several generations of ancestors.
- Stowe School, a private institution in Buckinghamshire where he studied until he turned sixteen, was his alma mater.
- Due to his dyslexia and low academic achievement, Branson’s headteacher Robert Drayson predicted on his final day of school that he would either go to jail or become a billionaire. Additionally, Branson has been quite forthright about his ADHD.
- Branson grew up with the encouragement of his parents, who believed in his potential from the start. In 1967 and 1968, he lived in a squat in London.
Richard Branson Personal Life
- They wed in 1972, but Richard Branson and Kristen Tomassi filed for divorce in 1979.
- In 1989, he wed Joan Templeman on the British Virgin Island he owns—Necker Island. He is also a landowner on the Caribbean islands of Barbuda and Antigua. He is a parent to a boy and a daughter.
- He is a die-hard fan of the football club Oxford United.
- In May 2008, he went to the Massai Mara to help build a new school and spread his enthusiasm for humanitarian projects.
Politics
Branson was entrusted with “keeping Britain neat” when Margaret Thatcher appointed him “litter Tsar” in the 1980s. Branson was interviewed during the Labour Party celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall for BBC coverage of the 1997 UK General Election.
In 2005, he said the two major parties’ economic views were so similar that they should be considered interchangeable. Before the inaugural London mayoral election in 2000, he was proposed as a candidate even though surveys indicated he would be a strong contender. Branson advocated decriminalising almost all drug users in the UK in March 2015, citing Portugal as an inspiration.
On 28 June 2016, he was questioned on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and stated that the referendum outcome had caused his company’s worth to drop by a third and that a project that would have employed more than 3,000 people had to be scrapped. There should be a second vote, which he supported.
