Branson. Tom Bower

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ there would be no commercial risk, stipulated Branson. Lindstrand would provide the balloon at cost and would not be paid for piloting it across the Atlantic. Branson wanted guarantees that only his bravado and never his terror should be broadcast. Branson would be presented as the captain of the balloon and only he would speak to the media. Lindstrand, the designer, navigator and pilot of the Virgin Atlantic Flyer, was not to talk about the crossing without Branson’s agreement and that would never be offered. The list continued but the Swede was unconcerned. Branson provided the opportunity to satisfy his dream.

      Although Branson would take a course in balloon flying, undergo some instruction in using a parachute and be shown how to operate a radio, both accepted that the paymaster was a passenger. His talent was masterminding a showcase performance at Sugarloaf Mountain near Boston.

      Few newspapers and television stations resisted Branson’s personal invitation to witness the preparations and take-off, planned for May 1987. His provision of a satellite transmitter to feed pictures and interviews supplied by Virgin’s own television crew encouraged even those hesitant about pleasing a self-publicist to journey to Sugarloaf and report the possibility of a tycoon’s dramatic death.

      The countdown began but bad weather delayed the lift-off. Around the clock, Branson, the brave adventurer risking his life for a mention in the Guinness Book of Records, made himself available to journalists and TV crews for endless interviews, even escorting journalists on boating trips to stave off the boredom.

      For four weeks Branson waited, managing his business in Britain by telephone until in mid-June an urgent message from London interrupted his frustrating routine. A newspaper had discovered that Virgin was to launch a condom. Despite the denials – ‘Your report is extremely inaccurate and misleading,’ brazenly asserted a Virgin publicist – the story could not be suppressed. With one balloon marooned by the weather, Branson dashed back to London to launch another variety.

      On the transatlantic flight from Boston, Branson explained his latest preoccupation with sex and uttered a doom-laden scare about Aids: ‘Potentially, it’s a catastrophic problem to the younger generation. If nothing is done, we could be talking about hundreds of thousands of people being stricken with the virus over the next fifteen years.’ He proposed a publicity campaign to frighten the British to change their habits. ‘He’s putting something back into society,’ explained his publicists in London summoning a press conference. Branson was associated with a good deed, alleviating the embarrassments of the ‘Minister for Rubbish’ and UK 2000. In mid-Atlantic his alarmism was uncontrolled. ‘Half of America’s population,’ he continued, ‘could die of Aids by 2010. Aids has taken a firm grip on heterosexuals.’ Someone more thoughtful might have been more cautious but Branson was prone to exaggeration: ‘By 2010, one third of the population could be infected with the Aids virus in one form or another.’ Cynics would ascribe Branson’s alarm to his permanent obsession with sex. ‘My principal weakness is women,’ he admitted. ‘I inherited it from my dad.’ Visitors to his office in Holland Park, like the journalist Cherry Hughes, were repeatedly amazed by the ‘over-sexed atmosphere, like a permanent orgy’. The cure was condoms. The brand name, he proposed, was ‘Virgin Jumpers’ to match the colloquialism, ‘Slip a jumper on!’ or ‘Have a jump!’

      Durex, the supplier of 98 per cent of Britain’s condoms, had refused to supply Virgin. Instead, Branson had signed a deal with Ansell, one of America’s biggest manufacturers. Ansell had been delighted. Repeatedly, the company had failed to break into the British market and Branson had agreed to underwrite a £5 million launch. Fortunately for the American manufacturer, neither Branson nor John Jackson, his representative, appeared to have properly investigated Ansell’s misfortunes in Britain.

      Before Branson landed at Heathrow, outrage had erupted in the centre of London.

      ‘You won’t guess what’s happening,’ Lawrence Post, Virgin’s company secretary, told Cob Stenham, Virgin’s non-executive director. ‘Richard’s going to give a press conference at Heathrow. To announce Virgin condoms.’

      ‘What? When?’ asked Stenham.

      ‘When he lands from America,’ replied Post. ‘Later today.’

      ‘He can’t do that,’ spluttered Stenham. ‘It hasn’t been agreed by the board. It hasn’t even been considered by the directors.’

      Stenham telephoned Philip Harris, Virgin’s second non-executive director. Branson, they agreed, should be intercepted and brought to London before he spoke. Both had become irritated by Branson’s behaviour. Ever since the flotation, he was breezily announcing deals – ‘I’ve bought Storm, the model agency’ – without consulting the other directors, and he rarely attended board meetings.

      Only four weeks earlier Lawrence Post had announced, ‘The board meeting is cancelled.’

      ‘Why? Where’s Richard?’ asked Stenham.

      ‘He’s gone to America to fly on a balloon,’ replied Post.

      ‘He’s always buggering off when it matters or calling board meetings at ten o’clock at night,’ complained Stenham.

      Branson refused to be pinned down. Complaints that he was an erratic manager, careless with documents and unaccountable with the company’s money, passed over his head. Despite his responsibility for the public’s money, Roger Seelig’s warning that ‘The City doesn’t like your action-man antics’, had been ignored. If his critics complained about a nightmare, he was unconcerned. The publicity at the flotation had been marvellous but he had moved on to the next idea. Unlike Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch whom he had vowed that year to overtake, he disliked constant involvement in the detailed development and management of his business. He prided himself on being a deal-maker, ‘good at getting things going’, delegating the management and the chaos to Don Cruickshank, the Virgin Group’s managing director. ‘A publicity-seeking deal-junkie,’ was one director’s seething assessment.

      Cruickshank, a critical ingredient for the flotation and Virgin’s first employee to wear a tie, was reminding a maverick marketeer that he could not use the public company’s money for private purposes. But Branson had set his annual salary at £60,000 to justify his staff’s low wages, to minimise his taxes, and to claim expenses from the company. Too often, complained Cruickshank, Branson had issued a company cheque to charge costs incurred on Necker, his private island. ‘But I entertained for Virgin,’ protested Branson, apparently unaware that a public company requires accountability. Cruickshank, he realised, would not accept the legality that Necker was ‘not my personal island but a commercial venture and a successful part of our hotel division’. Sensing that his explanation was rejected, he retreated, ‘It was a mistake. Someone must have used the wrong account.’ No one dared to question how he could afford his lifestyle unless he received money as a beneficiary from the offshore trusts.

      Branson’s dislike of ‘the onerous demands’ from the City was undisguised. He rarely visited the company’s headquarters in Ladbroke Grove – to the irritation of rock groups playing in the street outside in the hope of a contract – and he sat sullenly at meetings held in Harris’s home because Virgin did not possess a boardroom. Paying dividends to the new shareholders was hateful. Shareholders’ money, Branson appeared to believe, should be his to use at no cost while he pledged his own shares as collateral to raise loans. But he did keenly understand that Stenham and Harris could prevent Virgin’s name on condoms. ‘Why should a music company go into condoms?’ asked Harris. ‘Are you doing it for money, charity or publicity?’ The answer was incomprehensible. Hours later Branson acted contrite. ‘Course they won’t be called Virgin condoms,’ he promised. Whenever a warning sounded, his performance was honed to perfection. His remorse defused the row.

      The СКАЧАТЬ