Virgin but not so innocent

Sir Richard Branson has been a mainstay of Britain's public relations industry since he made his first million as a teenage business prodigy, and many of us have grown up with the sight of his grinning noggin appearing on our television screens with monotonous regularity, mixing chutzpah and crassness in equal measure.

Whether you like him or loathe him, my feelings about the flamboyant English entrepreneur owe much to his relentless campaign of self-promotion.

Knighted for his services to entrepreneurship in 1999, Branson has had more than 360 companies. His portfolio has included everything from condoms to cola to wine to mobile phones to financial services, with virtually nothing off-limits, even space travel – his latest venture, Virgin Galactic, is a commercial space flight service that might be based at Kinloss in Moray. All his investments have three common themes: low-profile partners who pay through the nose to go into business with him, gaudy Virgin branding and, most importantly, the profile that Branson's involvement undeniably bestows.

Branson has worked hard at building his image as a cheeky chappie willing to take on 'vested interests' or 'monopolies' such as British Airways, BSkyB, Coca-Cola, Camelot, the Government and, just this week, the NHS. In his newest role as vice-president of the Patients Association, he attacked trusts that failed to control MRSA. As he said himself in the neatly titled encapsulation of his philosophy Screw It, Let's Do It: "As far as I am concerned, anything, however outlandish, that generates media coverage reinforces my image as a risk-taker who challenges the establishment."

Although Branson's record label signed the Sex Pistols and the then avant-garde Culture Club, more often the image bears little connection to the reality. Branson attended the exclusive public school Stowe College and his grandfather, the High Court judge and privy councillor Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a pillar of the British establishment.

Branson is every cynic's dream. For every action he takes, there's invariably an exit strategy that enriches him, as per all good entrepreneurs. For instance, Zavvi, which went into administration before Christmas, was born when he sold his Virgin music stores to their management. He's like a Las Vegas card trick where the secret is not to concentrate on all the sound and fury onstage, but to follow the trail to see where the money goes.

Take his wealth. Forbes' most recent list of billionaires tells us that Branson is the 236th-richest man in the world with a fortune of $4.4bn. Yet according to his biographer Tom Bower, last year Branson's holding company lost £3.9m even as its most profitable venture, Virgin Atlantic, made £123m.

To square that circle, it's important to factor in that he makes his money not from operating profits but by using his profile to start up companies on the back of his name and then sell them on, invariably for a handsome profit and often charging a hefty fee for the right to use the Virgin brand.

His Englishness is equally malleable when it comes to profit. He trades on his status as the quintessential English eccentric adventurer, complete with transatlantic yacht and round-the-world hot air balloon, yet these days he is a tax exile living on his very own Caribbean island, Necker. That aversion to paying tax won't surprise those in the know: as Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable pointed out when questioning whether Branson was fit to lead a consortium of hedge fund managers hoping to take over Northern Rock, in 1971 the entrepreneur was charged with tax avoidance to the tune of £40,000, and fined £20,000.

For all his happy-go-lucky exterior, Branson is a man used to getting his own way. As a teenager he boasted about stealing from a telephone company, and as a dyslexic wasn't beyond cheating in exams. "I filled little cards with prompt notes and hid them all over my clothing, in pockets and up my sleeves, and even tucked under my watchstrap," he said, reasoning that "if I want to do something… I won't let silly rules stop me".

Applying the 'what's in this for him?' rationale to each of his schemes is instructive. Take his recent proclamation that "my new goal in life is to work at reducing carbon emissions". This was followed by high-powered summits on global warming with world leaders at Necker Island. Yet Branson owns several airlines and flies all over the world in a Falcon 900 executive jet. And while he hailed as "a historic day" a Virgin jumbo travelling between London and Amsterdam with one engine running on a mix containing 20% biofuel, environmentalists dismissed it as a stunt designed to highlight Branson's move into biofuel.

Many see everything he does through that prism. This week, in his new role as vice-president of the Patients Association, he hit out at NHS trusts that failed to control MRSA, arguing that if hospitals were run like private companies many administrators would be fired. To the public it sounded like common sense; to seasoned Branson-watchers it sounded like a pitch. After all, Branson hasn't displayed much civic-mindedness in the past. He was briefly Margaret Thatcher's litter tsar, but has passed on the opportunity to become mayor of London despite poll ratings which would make him a real contender. It's entrepreneurs and their money that rule the world and can effect change, Branson once said, not politicians.

As a money-making machine Branson has some huge weapons in his armoury, not least a winning manner which attracts others – particularly bankers, high-ranking politicians and joint venture partners – plus his ability to inspire in others tremendous loyalty.

If he has one defining business credo, it is a belief in service, although his time running the West Coast Main Line dented that somewhat. He also has an ability to see the big picture, hence his recent bid for Gatwick Airport, the hub through which so many of Virgin Atlantic's flights operate.

That wider view perhaps goes some way to explaining his latest venture, Virgin Galactic. It will give customers a seat aboard a spaceship that climbs to 50,000ft at speeds of more than 2,000mph, and allows them to experience weightlessness for four to six minutes. It's the perfect high-profile vehicle for appealing to rich individuals as Branson tries to break into the US, while also making him look like an altruistic entrepreneur. After all, he's "making private space travel available to everyone" – at $200,000 a seat.