Branson. Tom Bower
the appointment of a new director to outvote Fields at board meetings. To stop Branson, Fields appealed to the court for an injunction. He won and departed with the judge’s condemnation of Branson’s behaviour as having ‘left a bad taste in my mouth’. But the American’s legal victory was pyrrhic. Branson ordered that the locks on Fields’s office should be changed. Pleading, begging and screaming with Branson for reason, Fields was reduced to tears by a man whom he damned to his friends as ‘The Devil’. Finally, he accepted defeat and surrendered.
In the settlement on 1 May 1985, Branson paid £1 million for the American’s shares and promised a lifetime of free flights across the Atlantic on Virgin planes for Fields and his family. Branson was content. Knowing that Fields had lost was satisfying. But for Branson, minded to count every penny, the free flights rapidly became irksome. Fields’s frequent use of the concession, he estimated, cost $500,000 in the first year. Branson disputed the agreement and was again summoned by Fields to court. Branson had no chance of winning. The contract unambiguously gave Fields the right to unlimited flights. Branson was nevertheless determined to make Fields fight for his rights, gambling that a judge might be persuaded against Fields. He was unlucky. The judgment was clear and merciless. Fields’s victory found little sympathy in London. The general goodwill towards Branson neutralised Fields just as it silenced Branson’s other victims.
His performance was perfect. While Fields complained to friends about Branson’s ruthless negotiations, that image was unknown to most of Branson’s employees and the public. To the vast majority, he was a charming, fun-loving and blessed entrepreneur, readily embraced by the people.
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