List Of Richard Branson's Business Ventures
This is a list of Richard Branson's business ventures from the 1960s to today. 1960s * 1966 – After failed attempts to grow and sell both Christmas trees and budgerigars, Branson launches his first successful business, a magazine named ''Student'', the first issue of which appearing in January 1968. Branson's net worth was estimated at £50,000 by 1969. 1970s * 1970 – Start selling records by mail-order * 1971 – Opens his first record shop on Oxford Street * 1972 – Opens a Virgin Recording Studio * 1973 – Launches Virgin Records record label * 1979 – Buys the gay nightclub ''Heaven'', located under Charing Cross railway station. It was sold in 2003 to a private buyer. Branson's net worth was estimated at £5 million by 1979. 1980s * 1980 – Virgin Records goes international * 1981 – Virgin buys the Kensington Roof Gardens * 1983 – Virgin Vision, later to become Virgin Communications, is formed to distribute films and videos in the television and broadca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age. His first business venture, at the age of 16, was a magazine called ''Student''. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business. He opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records—later known as Virgin Megastores—in 1972. Branson's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he started Virgin Atlantic airline and expanded the Virgin Records music label. In 1997, Branson founded the Virgin Rail Group to bid for passenger rail franchises during the privatisation of British Rail. The Virgin Trains brand operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from 1997 to 2019, the InterCity CrossCountry franchise from 1997 to 2007, and the InterCity East Coast franchise from 2015 to 2018. In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Virgin Money
Virgin Money is a financial services brand used by two independent brand-licensees worldwide from the Virgin Group. Virgin Money branded services are currently available in Australia and the United Kingdom. The brand formerly operated in South Africa and the United States. Each Virgin Money branded entity acts independently from the others, thus the products vary from country to country. Current brand licensees Virgin Money Australia Virgin Money currently has operations in Australia with 150,000 customers and is owned by Bank of Queensland. Virgin Money UK Virgin Money currently has operations in the United Kingdom, the company was initially established as a personal finance company under the name of Virgin Direct in 1995, and the Virgin Money brand itself was introduced in 2000. Virgin Money vastly increased its size and customer base in 2012 with the purchase of the so-called 'good bank' portion of the nationalised Northern Rock bank. In 2018, the entire UK operation of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Virgin Cola
Virgin Cola was a carbonated cola soft drink, launched in 1994. History Virgin Cola was set up during the early 1990s in conjunction with Cott, an American-Canadian company that specialises in bottling own-label drinks. Cott was looking for a major international brand that could have worldwide appeal. Virgin Group founder, Richard Branson was looking to widen the Virgin name and to rival the Coca-Cola and Pepsi brands. Virgin Cola began to hit international shores within its first year. The UK first served the drink on Virgin Atlantic flights, on-board shops on Virgin Trains and also at Virgin Cinemas. The Gulliver's Kingdom chain of theme parks in the UK also sold post-mix Virgin Cola. This led Virgin Cola to agree a distribution deal with British supermarket retailer Tesco in 1994. From 1996, the 500 ml bottles were marketed as "The Pammy", as their curves were designed to resemble Pamela Anderson who was at the height of her popularity in the UK at the time. It went ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Absolute Radio
Absolute Radio is a British National radio station owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Absolute Radio Network. It broadcasts nationally across the UK via Digital audio broadcasting and on 1215 kHz MW. History 1993–1997: Virgin Radio launch and early years The Broadcasting Act 1990 allowed for the launch of independent national radio (INR) stations in the United Kingdom. The Radio Authority was mandated to award three INR licences, one of which (INR1) had to be for a "non-pop" station (which was awarded to Classic FM), and one of which had to be for a predominantly speech-based service (this would be advertised later as INR3 and would be awarded to Talk Radio). The remaining licence was to be open to "all-comers". The licences were to be awarded to the highest cash bidder, providing that the applicant met criteria set down in the Broadcasting Act. The second national licence, INR2, would take over the 1197 kHz and 1215 kHz frequencies, which were ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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PolyGram
PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a holding for their record companies, and was renamed "PolyGram" in 1972. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram Records. The company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disc gramophone, Emil Berliner. Later on, PolyGram expanded into the largest global entertainment company, creating film and television divisions. In May 1998, it was sold to the alcoholic distiller Seagram which owned film, television and music company Universal Studios. PolyGram was thereby folded into Universal Music Group, and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was folded into Universal Pictures, which had been both Seagram successors of MCA Inc. When the newly forme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thorn EMI
Thorn(s) or The Thorn(s) may refer to: Botany * Thorns, spines, and prickles, sharp structures on plants * ''Crataegus monogyna'', or common hawthorn, a plant species Comics and literature * Rose and Thorn, the two personalities of two DC Comics characters * Thorn (Marvel Comics), a fictional character from Marvel Comics * Thornn, a fictional character from Marvel Comics * Thorn (''Inheritance''), a dragon from the ''Inheritance cycle'' * ''Thorns'' (novel), a 1967 science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg * ''Thorn'', a 1982–1986 comic strip by Jeff Smith * Thorn Harvestar, a main character in Jeff Smith's ''Bone'' series * "The Thorn", a poem by William Wordsworth in ''Lyrical Ballads'', 1798 Companies, organisations and teams * Thorn (organization), an anti-human-trafficking organization * Thorn Electrical Industries, an electrical engineering business * Thorn EMI, a major British company involved in consumer electronics, music, defence and retail * Thorn Lighting, lumi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Virgin Megastores
Virgin Megastores is an international entertainment retailing chain, founded in early 1976 by Richard Branson as a record shop on London's Oxford Street. In 1979 the company opened their first Megastore at the end of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. The company expanded to hundreds of stores worldwide in the 1990s, but has lost a large number of stores in recent years, largely with the sale and eventual closing of the British, American, Irish, Canadian, Australian, Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, Japanese and Chinese stores. By 2015, it operated only in the Middle East and in North Africa. History Branson's early business ventures Richard Branson and Nik Powell had initially run a small record shop called ''Virgin Records and Tapes'' on Notting Hill Gate, London, specialising particularly in "krautrock" imports, and offering bean bags and free vegetarian food for the benefit of customers listening to the music on offer. After making the shop into a success, they ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Virgin Classics
Virgin Classics was a record label founded in 1988 as part of Richard Branson's Virgin Records. The unit, along with EMI Classics, was acquired by Universal Music in 2012 as part of the takeover of the EMI Group, however the terms of the European Commission's September 2012 approval of the takeover requires divestment of the classical labels which were sold on 7 February 2013 to Warner Music Group. The European Union approved the deal in May 2013. Warner Music's Warner Classics unit absorbed the Virgin Classics artists roster and catalogue into Erato Records but lost the rights to use either EMI or Virgin names. Principal artists * Piotr Anderszewski * Leif Ove Andsnes * Nicholas Angelich * Fabio Biondi * Gautier Capuçon * Renaud Capuçon * Max Emanuel Cencic * William Christie * Hughes de Courson * Alan Curtis (conductor) * Diana Damrau * David Daniels * Natalie Dessay * Joyce DiDonato * David Fray * Vivica Genaux * Véronique Gens * Emmanuelle Haïm * Daniel Harding * Phili ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Barnes, London
Barnes () is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. It takes up the extreme north-east of the borough, and as such is the closest part of the borough to central London. It is centred west south-west of Charing Cross in a bend of the River Thames. Its built environment includes a wide variety of convenience and arts shopping on its high street and a high proportion of 18th- and 19th-century buildings in the streets near Barnes Pond. Together they make up the Barnes Village conservation area where, along with its west riverside, pictured, most of the mid-19th-century properties are concentrated. On the east riverside is the WWT London Wetland Centre adjoining Barn Elms playing fields. Barnes has retained woodland on the "Barnes Trail" which is a short circular walk taking in the riverside, commercial streets and conservation area, marked by silver discs set in the ground and with QR coded information on distinctive oar signs, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Olympic Studios
Olympic Studios was a renowned British independent commercial recording studio based in Barnes, London. It is best known for its recordings of many artists throughout the late 1960s to the first decade of the 21st century, including Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Ella Fitzgerald, Queen, Ray Charles, the Who, B.B King, Traffic, Prince, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, Madonna, Adele and Björk. It is often regarded as being as significant as Abbey Road Studios, and remains an important cultural landmark. The studio's sound mixing desks became famous when the technology and design they pioneered was manufactured commercially. Although much of Olympic has returned to its original purpose as a cinema, it also still maintains a small recording facility, designed with the help of original members of the studio's staff, who are now also involved in the construction of a much larger studio, performance and teaching space, to run alongside Olympic' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mates Condoms
Mates condoms are a brand of condom sold in the UK. History The brand was launched in the UK in 1987 by Richard Branson, with its condoms intended as a low cost alternative to more expensive brands. In November 1987 the company aired the first condom advert on British television. In 1988, a year after launch, Richard Branson sold the company and brand to Ansell for 1 million pounds. The condom division in Ansell, of which Mates was a part, was sold in 2017 to Humanwell Healthcare Group and CITIC Capital China Partners for 600 million dollars. BBC, 25 May 2017 Structure For many years the company in the UK was operated from , betwe ...[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |