Sir Richard Branson enters the club room of New York’s SoHo Grand Hotel at lunchtime, declaring that he has just finished breakfast.
The potted palms, leopard-print cushions and pictures of Peter O’Toole and Sean Connery suit the playboy image the island-owning, kitesurfing, speedboat-racing (and apparently late-rising) balloonist enjoys, even at the age of 62.
Sir Richard has had an enjoyable few weeks. At the weekend it was reported that Virgin Moneyis planning a new bid for the branches of Royal Bank of Scotland it had sold to Santander only for the deal to collapse. This came on the back of winning a challenge to the British government’s decision to strip his Virgin Groupof the contract to run trains between London and Glasgow. The admission of “unacceptable flaws” in the process that had awarded the tender to FirstGroupcast Sir Richard in his favourite role of underdog. The tender process must now start again, and Sir Richard, ever the opportunist, seizes his chance to argue that Virgin should win this time. “It would be perceived as incredibly unfair if . . . the people who gamed the system by putting in this completely outlandish bid ended up achieving what they wanted to achieve,” he says.