Why Branson Remains Primarily Private with His Companies
While it's not unprecedented for someone that is very successful in business to say that they're not in it to make money, Branson in many ways goes beyond that.
Having said that though, many successful business and wealthy people don't simply do it to make money, as we've heard many times: that's just a way of keeping score.
But with Branson, his obsession is doing things and using the money he generates through his business to get into what really interests him, like trying to save the Corcorde some years back.
He also likes to take the money from one business and invest it almost immediately in others. What that does is show a balance one year of maybe $200 million, and the next year the company could show a loss of $150 million. If he had a majority of his companies publicly owned, he would be forced to do things in a much different way.
To me it's important that he does understand this and makes decisions based upon that knowledge. Although there are some that feel that as he gets older and wants to do even more stuff, he may be tempted to go public with a larger amount of the companies than he is now, so that he could tap the rich reservoir of investment capital that he would suddenly have access to.
This could happen, especially if the outrageous stunts part of his life ever dwindles down, which it may be starting to at this time. It seems he's getting a little more reflective than he used to be and thinking of other ways to spend his money. If that's the case, we may see a number of Virgin companies go public in the not-too-distant future.
Other Richard Branson Resources:
Richard Branson's Virgin Success
Thoroughly postmodern billionaire
Richard Branson's latest adventure will take Virgin into space
Richard Branson - Life - Philanthropy - Money
Richard Branson, Business Personality
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