Is virgin company a large or a small company?

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Steve

try reading "losing my virginity" Richard Bransons autobiography
its a fantastic read he is worth about 6-7 Billion usd but heres a little back ground

Profile: Richard Branson

The time to act is now, Sir Richard says
Sir Richard Branson's announcement that he is to donate the next 10 years' profits from his Virgin travel businesses to the fight against global warming is the latest - and most significant - act of philanthropy from one of the world's best known businessmen.
The move, announced in New York on a podium alongside Bill Clinton, is estimated to be worth $3bn (Â£1.6bn) over 10 years - about half his current personal fortune.

Just a week earlier Sir Richard had unveiled plans to invest hundreds of millions into the production of environmentally friendly fuel.

And in an interview with the BBC News website earlier this year he spoke of other philanthropic aims - including a health clinic to reduce deaths from HIV/Aids in South Africa.

He has also invested heavily in education and supports the ground-breaking CIDA university in Johannesburg, which provides affordable higher education for poor black youngsters and includes the Branson School for Entrepreneurship.

'Make a difference'

This latest announcement follows a visit to his west London home from Al Gore.

The former US vice-president turned environmental campaigner, whose film An Inconvenient Truth is shocking audiences with its message about the effect of global warming, told Sir Richard that the businessman was "in a position to make a difference" over global warming.

But Branson has not always had the money to invest in causes he is passionate about.

In the early days of Virgin, he and his staff would hide and pretend to be out when there were demands for bills to be paid.

Another Branson adventure will take Virgin into space

Born in 1950 and educated at Stowe School, he went into business at 16, publishing "Student" magazine and starting business life as a hippy entrepreneur with a flair for publicity.

By the age of 20, he was the subject of a television documentary.

Having originally founded Virgin as a mail order record company he later opened his first store, in London's Oxford Street. The Virgin Records music label was formed in 1972.

Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, recorded in Virgin's first recording studio - an Oxfordshire barn - and released in 1973, caught the laidback flavour of the era to become a phenomenal best-seller.

When punk came along, Virgin signed the outrageous Sex Pistols when other record companies refused to touch them. The move turned out to be a marketing coup.

Media tart?

Many other stars were signed up, including Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds and The Rolling Stones, making Virgin Records a major player in the international music business.

Since then Virgin has expanded into air and rail travel, mobile phones, finance, weddings, retail, drinks, hotels and gymnasiums with around 200 companies in over 30 countries employing more than 25,000 people.

Virgin Radio, the first national commercial rock music station, was launched on to the airwaves in 1993 and sold to Chris Evans in 1997.

Among its latest businesses are the development of Virgin Galactic - its space tourism business.

Bridal gurn... Richard Branson got a knighthood despite this...

Never one to miss a publicity opportunity Sir Richard has been pictured in a wedding dress and snapped with Pamela Anderson (at the launch of a cola drink in a bottle shaped like the model), Diana, Princess of Wales and Nelson Mandela.

But perhaps nothing has got his name in the headlines more than his daredevil antics.

In 1985, Sir Richard set out from New York to beat the record for crossing the Atlantic by boat, but barely a hundred miles from home the boat had hit some floating driftwood and sank.

Sir Richard and the crew had to be plucked from the sea but the escapade made him and his company household names.

Years later, and with more transatlantic achievements completed in the meantime, Sir Richard set the record for the fastest crossing of the English Channel by an amphibious vehicle to mark the 20th anniversary of Virgin Atlantic in 2004.

Showman

In the mid-1980s the Branson company was floated on the Stock Exchange, but the Branson style didn't fit the way City institutions expected public companies to behave. So he bought the company back from the shareholders.

To find the money he had to sell Virgin Records to Thorn-EMI. Even so the price, agreed in 1992, was huge, at almost Â£500million.

In 1994 Sir Richard made a bid to run the National Lottery, promising to give all the profits to charity, and lost. He lost a second attempt in 1999.

Virgin first carried paying passengers on a tilting train in 2001

Meanwhile, the Virgin bandwagon rolled on as he won important franchises in the country's rail network, taking over Cross-Country and West Coast Main Line.

In 1999 the married father-of-two was knighted for "services to entrepreneurship" but that did not signal an end of new businesses.

In 2000 Virgin launched a series of new businesses including Virgin Cars, Virgin Wines, Virgin Student, Virgin Money.com, Virgin Energy and Virgin Travelstore.com.

The next year Virgin Trains ran its first "Pendolino" tilting train on the West Coast Main Line with passengers on board.

But large sections of rail had to be upgraded before the trains could actually use their tilting facility.

Earlier this year he reached an agreement for NTL to takeover Virgin Mobile - a deal which will create the first UK firm to provide a four-way offer of cable TV, internet access, fixed line telephony and mobile phone services.

It was the surging cost of fuel at Virgin Rail and Virgin Atlantic that sparked Sir Richard's interest in making his business more energy-efficient.

~Girlie~

its a huge company

starlet108

A very large company - its an airline, a phone company , a music company - among others. Headed by Richard Branson xx

IMpman

Virgin is a very large PLC. (a public limited comapny) This means that it openly sells its shares on the stock market for people to buy and sell.

It owns a large amount of different services. These include Rail Travel, Air travel, Their megastores among others.

http://www.virgin.com/uk/default.asp
This is their UK based company website. Check this for more details.

caribbean_smith

Mega huge.

Angel666

Its a Massive company, if you go on www.virgin.com, and click the tab about us, it will give you loads of information about the company, there is also a contact us tab, e-mail them and ask them the questions you need answering, i remember doing this kind of thing for my coursework, the best way to get information is straight from the horses mouth, well in this case Richard Branson.

Dravvin

Check out: www.virgin.com/ and judge for yourself. Assuming you mean that Virgin.

Their markets include: space tourism, cola, international flights, finance, broadband, mobile phone network and much more.

brainlady

http://www.virgin.com/aboutvirgin/allaboutvirgin/default.asp

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