THE GUARDIAN: The billionaire Virgin boss is no radical, he's no entrepreneur, he's just a plain old-fashioned carpetbagger
Last week, you, me and every other taxpayer in Britain each handed £13 to the billionaire Richard Branson. Not that we were told about this national whip-round. Instead, George Osborne claimed the heavily discounted sale of Northern Rock to the Virgin boss and a few of his chums represented "value for money". That's a funny way to describe a deal where taxpayers come out at least £400m poorer, but at least we now have an answer to that perennial pre-Christmas question of what to give the man who has everything.
And what do Team Branson plan to do with the Rock? Listen to Virgin Money chairman David Clementi's talk of creating "a significant banking competitor" and you'd have come away with wholesome impressions of commitment and investment. If you'd leafed through the FT this weekend, though, you'd have read about how the Virgin consortium will raid the business of its own cash to pay for the purchase – and then, as the chief investor, American financier Wilbur Ross, puts it: "We would hope to sell out a few years down the road." In other words, the business plan is to buy it cheap, strip it of assets – then flog it dear.
Hang on, you're probably thinking. Is this the same Branson who had those record shops? Who always pops up in the papers dressed as a woman or riding in a hot air balloon? Sir Richard of the Beard and the Overbite?
And the answer is: yes. Sure, Branson would like you to believe that he's the greatest iconoclast since John Calvin, leading a Reformation of established business. And if you won't buy that, he'll settle for being cast as a public-school Don Quixote for ever tilting at insiders and interest groups. Yes, the entrepreneur screws up – as with cars, cola, cosmetics and all those other discarded Virgins – but he takes risks.
The more prosaic truth is that the Virgin boss keeps himself in homes in Holland Park and Necker Island by taking taxpayer subsidies and operating heavily protected businesses. After all, you don't get much safer than a small mortgage lender that's had all its rubbish assets taken off it by the Treasury, in a market where the big banks are keeping their eyes down and their fingers crossed. Continue reading and comment » | Aditya Chakrabortty | Monday, November 21, 2011
