Thread by @TeleBusiness

Sir Richard Branson: I thought 'Christ, the whole lot is going to come crashing down'

In an exclusive interview, tycoon reveals pandemic brought his Virgin empire to its knees

#Thread👇
telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/…

🔴@richardbranson, until now, been reluctant to open up about the pandemic and how it was the most difficult time in his career.

It is well-documented that Virgin Atlantic, was taken to the brink of collapse.

But he now reveals that financial difficulties went much deeper

🗣️“I'd spent 50 years building a business and I suddenly thought ‘Christ. Was it really worth that 50 years?’ It looked like the whole lot was going to come crashing down,” says Sir Richard Branson

➡️“We were in the cruise business. In the airline business. In the fitness clubs business. In the hotels business.”

“I thought I'd been quite smart and diversifying everything. But I had to sell 85% of my shares in Virgin Galactic to keep everything on track”

✈️Coming into the pandemic with more debt than its rivals, there was strong suspicion among many in the aviation industry that Virgin Atlantic would be one of Covid’s corporate casualties

✍️“Too small to access the state aid provided to its larger rivals such as British Airways; and too big to access small company financial support,” writes @ojngill

“The airline was left floundering in a financial no-man’s land”
telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/…

🗣️“On a purely selfish basis…I should have let Virgin Atlantic go on two or three occasions in my lifetime,” he explains, with the pandemic being one of them,” says Sir Branson

➡️ “But it was something that we felt, I felt, that the public would be very sad to see Virgin Atlantic go”

🗣️“It was a horrible, horrible time. But from our point of view, Virgin has come out, if you look at it, our brand is now stronger than it was in 2019”

Read @ojngill’s interview with @richardbranson in full here
telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/…