Virgin also played all the angles. It produced a TV documentary that aired before the flight and planned another for broadcast afterward. The first documentary did too good a job of drumming up interest in the flight and of hyping the dangers. The film, for example, showed Branson tumbling end over end, out of control, during his first parachute jump. His instructor rescued him, but at about the same time, the company's stock took its own dive, to 155 pence from 170.
The crossing was a success, albeit with a somewhat hair-raising ending. The balloon crossed the Atlantic in about one and a half days. The plan to use solar heat during the day, propane at night, worked beautifully. However, a system designed to sever the balloon from the capsule during a landing failed to work. Unable to land the craft, Branson and Lindstrand wound up leaping into the Irish Sea.
But again Branson emerged a hero. The trip, moreover, has paid off.
"The balloon project was on the front page of most newspapers in the world for a couple of days, and ran on most television stations," Branson says. "My guess is we must have had ?25 million (about $40 million) of free advertising out of that project. It was by no means my principal reason for doing it, but it's a nice by-product."
True to form, Branson is now turning the experience into a company. His new Voyager unit will include a ballooning school, balloon manufacturer, balloon holiday services -- the company holds rights to fly balloons over the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids -- and an airship company that expects to build small dirigibles. "So instead of Capital Radio in London flying a helicopter to look at the traffic, for a tenth of the price they'll be able to take one of our airships up," he says. "And obviously they've got advertising space on the side of it as well, which they wouldn't have had with a helicopter."
Airships. Half-price condoms. Balloons the size of jumbo jets. What Branson rewards most is flair. "He's very, very keen on the style with which things are done," says Robert Devereux, 32-year-old chairman of Virgin Vision, the group's video segment. "What really irritates him is when he sees things done in a humdrum way." This sense of flair makes him an especially dangerous competitor.
An example, as recalled by Stephen Navin, Virgin Vision's director of legal and business affairs:
Branson visits Ariola, the French arm of a German recording company that also handles record distribution for other companies, including, at the time, Virgin. An executive lets slip that Ariola plans to sign a singer named Julien Clerc (pronounced Claire). "So Richard rushes off into the loo and writes the name down on his hand," says Navin. "He can't speak French to save his life, so it was probably a very bad representation of how you'd actually spell Julien's name."
When he gets the chance, Branson calls the director of Virgin's own French operations and asks about this guy claire, or Cler, or whatever. He finds that Clerc is the hottest French property going. He tracks down Clerc's manager, and beats Ariola to the contract. "You couldn't call it industrial espionage," says Navin. "Call it grasping an opportunity that comes to your ears."
"Virgin has a reputation for toughness," says Nik Powell, an early partner of Branson's and now co-chairman of Palace Group of Companies Ltd., a filmmaker and distributor. He calls Branson a sharp negotiator. "His deals turn out to be extremely profitable," he says.
Branson the showman gave Virgin its high profile. Branson the manager has kept it lean and responsive, managing to do what so many U.S. entrepreneurs seem so incapable of accomplishing: delegation of power. "I'd go so far as to say that probably the greatest single reason for the success of the group is Richard's keeping out of it," says David M. Tait, the airline's executive vicepresident. "This isn't a negative comment on Richard. Just the way he locates his business gives you a clue. There's no glass-and-concrete tower, no Virgin Building with 10 floors of vice-presidents."
Branson's world headquarters is moored in Regent's Canal, squeezed tight in between boats fore and aft. It's a slender river barge called Duende, and to reach it you go through three gates and walk a concrete dill beside the canal, being careful not to trip on the sewage, water, and electrical hookups of Branson's neighbors. The neighborhood isn't exactly frenetic with interest in its resident hero. On the opposite bank, two men sit fishing in tne rain.
Branson, wearing his usual uniform of sweater and slacks, sits in a long room at the bow, which is paneled with knotty pine and banded with windows. Most of one wall is taken up by a bank of video and stereo equipment and a cabinet housing an eclectic collection of books, including Hashish and Dr. Ruth's Guide to Good Sex.
Working here, he says, he's found he can avoid interruptions and at the same time give his officers a greater sense of autonomy. The rest of his London operation is spread out in some 25 buildings, including townhouses, a warehouse, and a converted bathhouse, none of them with more than 80 employees.
"People always want to deal with the top person in a building," he says. With his companies so spread out, the ranking executive in each structure becomes the power center, "so somebody besides me takes complete responsibility. He becomes chairman of that company. He can make all the decisions. And I can be left to push the group forward into new areas."
