Comment by Francesc Riverola on September 3, 2012 at 1:14pm

make it simple.... how easy to say and how hard to do!

Comment by Peter jcp on September 3, 2012 at 1:20pm

That's my old Chairman ;-)  I was on a board of directors with him for just over 2 yrs. I was involved with him in 3 companies - he was chairman of approx 126 companies

His simple logic was find the best people for the job or the business and let them run it and prosper and he would just watch and try to follow. Out of every 10 companies he would start or buy into - only 1 or 2 would be jewels - 3-7 would be OK and he would sell off and the rest would fail - never to be heard of again. I came in sell off lot ;-)

Comment by genxtrader on September 3, 2012 at 1:50pm

   @ pete, Richard Branson is one of my all time favorites, i love his approach to business,as well as his spirit of adventure, what an experience it must have been too have had close relations with him. 

Comment by Peter jcp on September 3, 2012 at 3:04pm

Hi Genx - yes it certainly was ;-)) I was 31 yrs old at the time and he was a few years older. He combined Rock Star party animal attitude - with cold hard edged business logic. Deep down he was quite shy and introverted - but also the biggest prankster and extrovert possible when he had to turn it on.

He was coming out the core Record Industry and wanted to diversify his brand into everything you could think off. He got involved in Heathcare and his brand name was perfect for the condom industry. Whilst this was going on he had a massive piece of fortune launching his Aeroplane and travel business. My division got sold off to Pacific Dunlop and I then joined them for 6 years before doing a buy-out.

Time were good and I will never forget the business journey. I have only met him twice in last 10 yrs - once in Spain whilst on Holiday He lived life to the full and run his businesses at 100 mph and all the while on the "edge". If you have followed him and read any of his books - that's only half the story - the public would never believe everything that happened - but nowadays in the UK he has diversified further into Banking and the Railways - and his personal fortune is now well over 3 Billion pounds ( approx$5billion)

At the time I knew him he would have been worth about 10 million - and so in the last 25 years I would have no hesitation in saying he has done extremely well for himself - but he has been so close so many times to falling over the edge and losing everything - 

PS - I could write a book about him myself - but would not be able to pay the lawyers fees to win the case to get it published ( only joking lol)

Comment by Gill on September 3, 2012 at 11:06pm

How cool is this!

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

Comment by Gill on September 3, 2012 at 11:12pm

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