- published: 25 Jun 2013
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Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is best known as the founder of Virgin Group, which comprises more than 400 companies.
Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age. At the age of sixteen his first business venture was a magazine called Student. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business. In 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, later known as Virgin Megastores. Branson's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he set up Virgin Atlantic and expanded the Virgin Records music label.
In March 2000, Branson was knighted at Buckingham Palace for "services to entrepreneurship". In July 2015, Forbes listed Branson's estimated net worth at US $5.2 billion.
Branson was born in Blackheath, London, the eldest of three children of Eve Branson (née Evette Huntley Flindt; born 1924), a former ballet dancer and air hostess, and Edward James Branson (1918–2011), a barrister. Branson has two younger sisters. His grandfather, the Right Honourable Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a judge of the High Court of Justice and a Privy Councillor. Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School, a prep school in Berkshire, before briefly attending Cliff View House School in Sussex. His third great-grandfather, John Edward Branson, left England for India in 1793. His father, Harry Wilkins Branson, later joined him in Madras. Through intermarriage, Branson is 3.9% Indian and 1.7% Turkish. Branson attended Stowe School, an independent school in Buckinghamshire until the age of sixteen. Branson has dyslexia and had poor academic performance as a student, and on his last day at school, his headmaster, Robert Drayson, told him he would either end up in prison or become a millionaire. Branson's parents were supportive of his endeavours from an early age.