Читать книгу Branson - Tom Bower - Страница 13

Scattered in eighteen houses across London, Virgin’s employees were thrilled by the informality and their proximity to Branson’s new fame. Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Music had transformed the company’s foot soldiers into icons of glamour. Young, aspiring working-class secretaries and scrawny clerks relished the opportunity to escape their anonymity and win recognition in the pubs and clubs by announcing, ‘I work for Richard Branson.’ Wherever they held court, regaling envious strangers about the Virgin family, Branson’s army boasted something more important than share options and money. They shone status, a quality of life and a unique qualification for the next job. Employment by Branson was an adventure. The people’s tycoon satisfied their need for moral purpose. ‘And did you see Richard Branson?’ they were asked. ‘See him! I talked and danced with him,’ they sighed about an icon they gladly worshipped. ‘He’s wonderful. And so generous.’ Their audience’s interest and envy compensated for low wages.

Annual bonding sessions encouraged staff loyalty. The mystery day trips to Croydon and the Isle of Wight had evolved into wild weekends in foreign hotels. Under Branson’s supervision, the daytime was filled with sport, golf, rounders, cricket and endless pranks and the nights with parties, alcohol, drugs and endless sex. The climax was glorious mayhem. Television sets were thrown out of windows, fire extinguishers were squirted around bedrooms and buildings were trashed. In the spirit of fun, at the centre, was Branson kissing and groping every girl in sight and constantly disappearing into the shadows or passing through bedroom doors.

The party habit had been perfected with the establishment of Virgin Atlantic. Since most of the airline’s hostesses matched his stipulation – tall, blonde with big breasts – he knew that if he joined the crew at their Newark hotel, he could probably find one who was willing. Names were never mentioned. Although he was often seen disappearing with a woman, and often with two if he was partying with David Tait in America, or Rod Vickery in the music world, an omerta descended about the night’s carousing. One of the exceptions was Pier Walker, a Virgin Atlantic hostess, who described her weekend’s affair with Branson in New York. Branson’s denial on the grounds of his ‘absolute and binding rule’ never to go near anyone employed by Virgin was a topic of mirth among the dozens of his former employees recalling his enthusiastic chases after female employees. ‘First girl to get them out and shake maracas between them,’ he had laughed at a Virgin party, ‘wins two first class tickets to the States.’ A blonde with big bosoms obliged. Everyone roared their approval and admiration for Branson’s generosity, forgetting that the tickets would only be given for empty seats on his own airline, a cost-free gesture. The following day, everyone was certain that Branson had helped the girl to her home that night but Branson was emphatic: ‘I’m a great believer in sticking with one relationship. Of course, one will get tempted but I have generally resisted temptation.’

In pubs across London in the aftermath of his company bonding sessions, Branson’s disciples spread stories about those riotous weekends. ‘Virgin is so different,’ Jon Webster, Virgin’s marketing director would say. ‘We’re part of one big, happy family with a strong, capitalist money-making ethic.’ Branson’s vulgarity appealed to those flattered to be given opportunities.

Not only had he paid for the weekends but also for lovely gestures at the wedding receptions of favoured employees using Virgin’s club in the Kensington Roof Gardens. As the newly weds shook hands with the owner, the King more than once loudly proclaimed, ‘It’s all on me.’ How Branson savoured the cheers, the devotion of his people, but the afterglow was occasionally brief. Some grooms discovered that the largesse was limited and others discovered that Branson’s spontaneous generosity did not protect them from subsequent dismissal.

Inside Virgin, the image of ‘generous, fun-loving Richard’ was fiercely protected. No one wanted to contemplate that the millions and the celebrity of an empire spanning music to an airline had changed their hero. For them, he was still the relaxed hippie who would arrive as the guest speaker at the Institute of Directors full of bravado in a jumper, hand-knitted by an aunt, scornful that the expected dress was dark suits.

Only the old guard noticed how Branson’s mood and appearance had modified. The hair was slightly landscaped. The beard was cropped. The shirts were ironed. The sweaters appeared to be fitted. The expensive shoes favoured by City magnates now encased his feet. Occasionally he even wore a jacket. The swagger had perceptively matured. His personality had hardened. The joyously rebellious youth had been replaced by a rebel tycoon on a mission. The eyewitnesses to his reinvention remained loyally silent, noticing Branson’s particular sensitivity to the subject of Nik Powell’s departure with comparatively little money despite Virgin’s exploding fortunes. ‘It’s the end of the era of innocence,’ announced Al Clark, the resident philosopher. Branson, they finally began to understand, was no different from any other hard businessman. Among the new casualties was Jumbo van Renen, a black South African, who had worked for eleven years with Simon Draper. Van Renen’s contribution to Virgin Records was considerable but Branson spurned his approach for a pay increase. ‘I’m afraid I can’t pay you more,’ smiled Branson in a superior manner, ‘because it’s only right that we invest all our profits in the company as a long-term strategy. It’s for the good of the family. We’re all one big family.’ Van Renen nodded apologetically but on reflection he began to query Branson’s loyalty to the ‘family’.

Branson’s real family, receiving big salaries with valuable share options, were Simon Draper and Robert Devereux – Branson’s new brother-in-law who had been hired in 1983 to manage Virgin’s publishing business – and Ken Berry, the former accounts clerk who owned a 15 per cent stake in the company. Those three, exclusively privy to some financial secrets, and Branson, were the real beneficiaries of Virgin’s policy of low wages. All established offshore trusts and occupied houses bought and maintained by Virgin. No one else shared in this ‘family’s’ fortune.

Van Renen had felt betrayed by the stammering performance of Branson as the innocent amateur. ‘I’m leaving,’ he told Branson. ‘Fine,’ he was told. Branson’s eyes showed no compassion. No one was compelled to work for Virgin. His executives and employees could read their contracts. Some might call it self-centred or selfish. He called it commercial. Everything was dedicated to Virgin’s shareholders. In 1982, they had received £1.4 million in dividends from Virgin. In 1984, the dividend income increased to £4.5 million. The shareholders were the private trusts associated with Draper, Berry, Devereux and, principally, Branson. His share was being reinvested in the airline, struggling to establish itself.

‘What are we going to do?’ Branson asked his publicists. ‘We need something to get us into the media.’ His 747 was carrying backpackers on cheap tickets and businessmen were still avoiding his unreliable service. The solution, Branson reasoned, was to promote himself. The method was suggested by Simon Draper.

Ted Toleman, a friend from the motor racing fraternity, was seeking sponsors to promote his catamaran’s race across the Atlantic. The prize was the Blue Riband cup which had been awarded since 1935 for the fastest crossing. Toleman’s crew included Chay Blyth, the round-the-world yachtsman, and a BBC television reporter. In return for sponsorship, Branson could join as a passenger on the especially named Virgin Atlantic Challenger. Branson knew that the challenge was suspect. The Blue Riband was a competition for passenger liners not speed boats refuelling at sea. But unable to pay New York advertising rates, and planning to defray the costs by finding other sponsors, the opportunity of attracting free attention to himself was too important to miss. The moment of metamorphosis had arrived. The actor’s performance, until then restricted to a handful of spectators, was to be offered to a worldwide audience. Insiders did not spot any hesitation or reflection. After trading for eighteen years, Branson understood all the aspects of his gamble to become a star. The downside made it risk free.

‘We’ll use the 747,’ Branson told Hugh Band, the airline’s marketing director. One hundred journalists were flown on 7 February 1985 above the Scilly Isles to witness, while eating and drinking at Virgin’s hospitality, the finishing line for the crossing. Later, limping into a press conference dressed as a pirate, with a black eye patch and a stuffed parrot on his shoulder, Branson wallowed in the attention of his guests. His easygoing manner and availability encouraged newspapers to repeat his self-description as a ‘daredevil’ for whom ‘a race across the Atlantic is all in a day’s fun for Her Majesty’s wackiest tycoon’. Although the misdescription as ‘the son of a judge and a ballet dancer [who] doesn’t drink much and doesn’t smoke at all’ was mystifying, Virgin’s active press office, primed to demand swift corrections, was grateful that Branson’s occasional collapse into drunkenness at parties and his smoking passed unmentioned. The only casualty was Ted Toleman who was discovering the undeclared price for Branson’s co-operation as he was cast into the shadows.

By 10 August 1985, as the catamaran bobbed in the sunlight by a Manhattan quay on the eve of departure, Branson, despite his technical and navigational ignorance, was fêted in the media as the expedition’s captain. Four days later, after a trip refreshed by refuelling stops, the first ‘race’ ended in disaster. The boat hit some flotsam and sank just two hours from the finishing line. It was an ignominious end to what Chay Blyth described as ‘An easy trip. Not life threatening.’

Stepping from the sinking catamaran into a life vessel, Branson was inspiring his publicity machine by radio to twist his flop into success: ‘Branson – the hero who bravely escaped from the clutches of death.’ Conveniently, Branson’s son Sam had been born during the first day of the journey and a publicist had arranged for Joan to tastefully pose for photographs which were published by newspapers on the front page reporting how the ‘daredevil’ father toasted his new born. He was lionised for his bravery. The thirty-five-year-old Branson could chortle about millions of pounds of free advertising. Even disasters could be presented as a success. Many Britons were entranced. Reservations for Virgin Atlantic increased. ‘Virgin is worth over £150 million,’ he preened to a television audience, notwithstanding that it still owned just one plane flying one route.

His greater bravado was to complete his cosseted transatlantic crossing while disguising his latest financial crisis, during which Coutts had threatened to dishonour Virgin’s next cheque. Branson’s business, employing 1,100 people, was again on the brink of chaos. Financial crisis had become a normal part of life, but the stakes on each occasion were higher. His knee-jerk entry into new ventures – first the airline, then computer games, television and holidays – had sucked cash from the record business. Buying rock groups had become more expensive, costing millions before any profits were earned. Without organisation or accountability, Virgin’s casually managed finances had obscured the losses caused by bad management. Although the company’s pre-tax losses in 1981 of £1.3 million had improved to profits of £12 million in 1985, and turnover had risen in the same period from £30 million to £152 million, the company had pressing debts of £7.6 million, tax debts of £7 million and owed in total £22 million, mostly on the aircraft’s lease. Branson’s optimism about Virgin Communications, managed by Robert Devereux, seemed misplaced despite his annual report’s reference to an ‘excellent year with turnover more than doubled, with pre-tax profits rising five fold’. As a recent founder of British Satellite Broadcasting, Virgin would be, he proclaimed, ‘in the leading position in the television market in the nineties’ despite offering European viewers old English language television programmes. To fulfil his ambition to own Britain’s biggest international entertainment group, Branson and Devereux required money, creative talent and the respect of the industry regulators. They failed on all the requirements.

His salvation appeared to be Roger Seelig, a confident, talented and aggressive merchant banker at Morgan Grenfell. ‘You’re lucky that you can take advantage of lax accounting standards,’ the banker told Branson, surveying a company on the verge of disaster. The best solution, advised Seelig, was to borrow money in the City by floating the company on the stock exchange. The first step was to appoint professional managers. Branson’s instinctive reaction was negative. Outside scrutiny and participation in his secret business was loathsome. But necessity dictated his agreement. At least a flotation would provide money for expansion, settle unpaid taxes and debts, and provide another opportunity to transfer his wealth to offshore trusts to avoid future taxation.

Terry Baughan, Virgin’s finance director, was the first casualty. ‘He’s no good,’ Branson was told. On Seelig’s recommendation, in August 1984, Don Cruickshank, a forty-three-year-old accountant formerly employed by Thomson Newspapers and Pearson, was appointed Virgin’s managing director. In April 1985, Cruickshank recruited Trevor Abbott, a thirty-five-year-old accountant employed at MAM, a diversified entertainment company, as finance director. Both were attracted by the glamour of Branson and Virgin. Branson offered something special, even unique, to some professional businessmen. His ‘can-do’ enthusiasm attracted those stultified by business’s traditional hierarchies. ‘He’s a man,’ Abbott soon after remarked, ‘who can turn stone into money.’ At the end of that year, twenty-five City institutions loaned Virgin £20 million.

Suddenly free of immediate financial pressure, Branson focused again on his self-promotional campaign. Only a successful speedboat crossing of the Atlantic satisfied his requirement. The publicity for the failure had been substantial. Success would be a bigger prize. He marvelled at its simplicity. Thanks to the media uncritically reproducing his own comparison of himself with Scott of the Antarctic, the public believed the venture was dangerous. But the crossing on a new boat, refuelled by Esso tankers as his crew were fed hot Irish stew, with the promised support of the Royal Air Force and other rescue organisations, would be safer than a drive along the M4 motorway.

Branson’s priority was a better boat, not one built by Ted Toleman. Delivering the message was painful – for Toleman. In Branson’s customary manner, the bad news was drip fed. Not only did Toleman lose the contract for building the new craft, but Chay Blyth was hired by Branson and three of Toleman’s best staff were poached by Virgin, although Branson would suggest that each had asked for the job. Toleman was ‘on his way’.

‘How can we describe Richard?’ Chris Moss, the marketing expert snared by Branson, asked Blyth, the captain of the crossing.

‘Call him skipper,’ replied Blyth, understanding Branson’s vanity. ‘After all, he’s paying the bills. Just call me Number One.’

On 12 August 1986, Virgin’s publicity machine corralled dozens of journalists and TV cameras into New York harbour. Since the single purpose of the trip was to publicise Virgin Atlantic, Branson spoke ceaselessly. ‘We are like Scott of the Antarctic,’ he repeated. ‘We’re proud to follow in his footsteps’. Branson’s generosity towards the media silenced the cynics who had noted the absurdity of the comparison.

Linked by radio to Virgin’s control centre in Britain, Branson set off not on a nautical but a journalistic marathon. During the four days, he ceaselessly gave interviews, endlessly repeating the same thoughts of bravery and derring-do. To enliven an unexpectedly dull voyage, the man who was determined not to be forgotten even invented a passing whale to suggest danger. ‘It was just as safe as the first trip,’ Blyth grunted, contradicting Branson’s on-the-verge-of-death accounts.

With just two hours to spare, the boat crossed the finishing line. Branson’s luck was extraordinary. Millions were watching the half-time summary of the World Cup in Mexico on television. His success was flashed on the TV screens followed by live pictures of Virgin’s hero. ‘More millions of free publicity,’ crowed Branson.

‘Mrs Thatcher says she wants to see the boat,’ Branson told his publicists. His coup – calling in favours – was remarkable. No one understood how Branson’s personal telephone call to Margaret Thatcher lured the prime minister on 3 July 1986 to the River Thames to promote Virgin. Standing beside Thatcher, Branson sped at 30 knots, unlawfully fast, under Tower Bridge raised in salute to a British hero. Branson never considered the irony that nine years earlier he had deliberately broken the law on the same river to promote the Sex Pistols, thereby financing his pose next to the Prime Minister. All that mattered was the intoxicating glamour and the media attention. ‘He’s done it,’ screamed the Daily Mail’s headline. ‘Richard the Lionheart,’ worshipped the Daily Express. ‘Pride of the Atlantic’, ‘King of the Waves’, ‘Salute to Challenger’, ‘Towering Triumph’, blared other newspapers.

In a round-Britain tour, Challenger II docked in harbours to promote Virgin, with Branson making guest appearances. His presence was hailed by ordinary people as historic. Virgin shops reported record sales. Cheered as a national hero, Branson swelled with the adulation. Virgin, he mused, had become more than merely a player. The company had entered the nation’s folklore and he had been anointed an icon. Reality chose that inappropriate moment to bite back.

‘The fans are puking about you and Thatcher,’ Jeremy Lascelles, Virgin Music’s A&R manager, told Branson with an unexpected grimace hours after his return to his office. ‘It’s all very unhelpful with the bands too. They loathe Thatcher.’ Branson was shocked. Thatcherism – the encouragement of entrepreneurship, the privatisation of state industries and the moral legitimacy of wealth – enabled his success and he had occasionally accepted invitations to Downing Street. The ‘hippie tycoon’ and classless toff whose popular appeal straddled social barriers, had never revealed his sympathy for Margaret Thatcher. ‘Most young people in Britain are like me,’ he scoffed. ‘We are more popular than you think.’ Momentarily, Lascelles was puzzled. ‘We,’ Lascelles mused. ‘What does he mean “We”?’ Moments later, Lascelles, a charming musician, believed he understood. Branson was apparently speaking royally. ‘We can do no wrong,’ Branson repeated. ‘You see,’ he told Lascelles, ‘the press are treating us favourably.’ Reality and illusion merged in the hero’s mind, often incoherently. After again posing for newspaper photographers with his children, he pontificated, ‘I would never involve my family with the press.’ Overwhelmed by the celebrity, he could not imagine that an assistant was struggling to persuade musicians to appear in an edition of This Is Your Life to celebrate Branson. ‘People don’t want to know,’ Sian Davis, a publicist, moaned. ‘Even the Human League’s manager said “No”.’

The television programme possibly contributed another subtle change of the chameleon’s colour. The new image was modesty. He eschewed expensive cars, preached that he flew economy class – ‘the extra comfort is not worth the extra cost,’ scoffed the owner of an airline seeking business class passengers – and espoused a carefully refined casual style. With echoes of his sixties credo, Branson chose to speak again as the champion of the people. His natural nonchalance was commercially advantageous. The star had become a valuable commodity. Major corporations were seeking Branson’s endorsement in advertisements. In the new yuppie era, socialism was discredited and wealth was no longer sinful. Branson as the classless, benevolent rags to riches tycoon compared well with the suffocating grandeur of his competitors. But the reality was a lifestyle of extraordinary opulence in a life divided between a large house in Notting Hill, Mill End, his country house in Oxfordshire, and Necker, expensively developed by the company.

Hosting parties at the weekend, organising endless sports competitions, ample food and wine and free foreign holidays satisfied Branson’s need for entertainment. Jeremy Lascelles, Chris Moss, Simon Draper and many others loved Branson. He guaranteed fun. Few of the chosen jesters could recall what their host actually said but the safety of numbers protected everyone from boredom. Even a growing habit towards exaggeration – ‘How I signed the Sex Pistols’ – was tolerated. The prankster, placing himself at the centre of attention, conjured scenarios exalting his courage: ‘As I bobbed up and down in the Atlantic in a life raft,’ he prattled, ‘I had this vision of Virgin as the largest entertainment group in the world outside the United States.’

Deluded by his own propaganda and the popular hero-worship, he convinced himself that his business and his methods were sufficiently robust to withstand the scrutiny of outsiders. Fatefully, he decided to ask the public not only for their adoration but also for their money.