Richard Branson Doesn't Have a Drop to Drink
Despite a $5.9 billion net worth, Richard Branson is strapped for cash. His Virgin Galactic business might be better collateral than his private island.
Thirsty work.
Photographer: KARIM JAAFAR/AFPRichard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur and occasional poet, spends much of his time on his private island, Necker, indulging a passion for kite surfing. And he’s risked life and limb crossing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in a hot-air balloon. But it’s only in the past few days that the above line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” will have begun to resonate as regards his financial affairs.
On Monday he penned an extraordinary public letter appealing to the British government to provide an emergency loan to prevent the collapse of transatlantic carrier Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., which he owns jointly along with Delta Air Lines Inc. of the U.S.