Virgin King

Richard Branson is unique among today's folk heroes. Which other self-made British billionaire could lay claim to the highest esteem of our schoolchildren? Which other company chairman could be referred to by former BA Chairman Lord King as a 'pirate', having launched an airline largely on the profits of a pop song, and then go on to strike terror into the hearts of Coca-Cola and Pepsi by repackaging a branded cola? Only Branson. He is the everyman entrepreneur of our times: half marketing genius, half motivational wizard.

Virgin King explains how Branson started a mail-order record business in 1969 and ended up with a corporate conglomerate and riches beyond his dreams today. In the first fully independent, unauthorized account of one of the great success stories of our time, Tim Jackson reveals how a public-school drop-out has found the key to presenting aggressive business acumen with a friendly face. Virgin King is the compelling history of both a private business empire and the man at its centre.

• Prologue: Concealing the Art

1. 1969: Easy Work, Good Money
2. One Per Cent of Tubular Bells
3. Broken Bottles
4. Media Mogul
5. Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?
6. Dear Randolph
7. To Market, To Market
8. 'Too Liberal a Use of the Lawyers'
9. The Little Boys and Their Boats
10. Hales and the Lionheart
11. Enlightened Capitalism
12. 'I've Got to Believe You're Serious about It'
13. Hot Air
14. Flying Across Two Oceans
15. recovery in Woodstock Street
16. A Man of Property
17. Branson Succumbs to Takeover Fever
18. Loos, Booze and Upper Class
19. The Price of Privacy
20. Playing at Retailing
21. How John Thornton Earned His $3m
22. The BA Bonus
23. Heathrow Airport and the Slot Machine
24. A Matter of Timing
25. The £40m Wager

A book about Branson.