British billionaire Sir Richard Branson hates being called a billionaire and thinks it’s very sad when people use wealth to gauge success. The Virgin Group founder may take some solace in that belief the next time his accountants visit.
Branson’s net worth dipped by £100 million ($126 million) to £2.4 billion ($3 billion) last year, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List, as his companies continued their struggle to recover massive valuation losses experienced during the pandemic.
It means Branson is now worth the same as he was in the year 2000, the paper reports, the same year he received his knighthood.
Branson’s $126 million wealth dip, although less than in recent years, continues a trend of declining fortunes for the entrepreneur, who has been fighting fires on several fronts since the COVID-19 pandemic.
He had $2 billion tied up in global stock markets last year, Bloomberg reported, and watched his wealth balloon during the pandemic-era bull market.
However, most of his publicly listed companies have had a torrid time since hitting peaks of around $8 billion in 2021, causing his wealth to nosedive.
His much-vaunted space travel firm Virgin Galactic is worth a fraction of what it was after a history of losses. Branson said last year that he was done pumping money into the struggling company, which has faced competition from Jeff Bezos’s Blue Orbit.
Companies backed by Branson that went public via a SPAC, DNA-testing group 23andMe online retail group Grove Collaborative, have both dropped in value by more than 90% since their peaks in 2021.
His now-defunct satellite company Virgin Orbit also filed for bankruptcy in April last year.
But brighter things are on the horizon for the entrepreneur.
Nationwide is set to buy Virgin Money for £2.9 billion ($3.7 billion), with Branson on track to receive £420 million ($539 million) thanks to his 14.5% stake in the bank.
What’s more, the Times of London reported that Branson could receive an additional £250 million ($321 million) under an obscure exit fee paid out to the billionaire so Nationwide can continue to license the Virgin Money brand for four years after its acquisition.
At higher altitudes, Branson’s airline Virgin Atlantic is on course to return to profit this year, the group’s CEO Shai Weiss said in April.
Back in April 2020, Branson pumped £200 million ($250 million) into the airline as air travel plummeted in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
‘Very sad’ billionaires
Money isn’t everything, of course. Speaking to CNBC in May, Branson said he thought it was “very sad” when people viewed success through the prism of wealth.
“Maybe in America, ‘billionaire’ is a sign of success, but that rankles me,” said Branson.
“Paying the bills at the end of the year is important, but what entrepreneurs are doing all over the world today—and the only reason they’re succeeding—is that they’re making a difference in other people’s lives,” Branson added. “And that’s all that really matters.”
While Branson’s fortune’s dipped this year, he was by no means the biggest loser among his billionaire peers.
Fellow knight Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder of privately-held petrochemical firm Ineos and new minority owner of Manchester United, watched his net worth plummet by £6.1 billion ($7 billion) to £23.5 billion ($29.7 billion).
The Sunday Times said his wealth was difficult to track, but had calculated Ratcliffe’s net worth based on falling profitability last year at Ineos, which faced squeezed margins from higher energy costs, interest rates, and inflation.
