Contemporary Strategy Analysis, 10th Edition

Case 18The Virgin Group in 2018*

On July 18, 2018, Sir Richard Branson celebrated his 68th birthday. Yet, 52 years after starting his first business, Branson's entrepreneurial vigor seemed little dimmed. His recent ventures included the launch of a Virgin cruise line, a US chain of Virgin hotels, the startup of Virgin Orbit providing launch services for small satellites, and Virgin Sport, which held its “first mass participation sports events” in London, Oxford, and San Francisco in 2017.

However, the Virgin Group as a whole was no longer a collection of young, entrepreneurial businesses—increasingly it was a portfolio of long‐established businesses in mature sectors such as airlines, train services, banking, and healthcare. Moreover, in recent years, Virgin's investments in new businesses had been dwarfed by its divestments. Increasingly, the Virgin Group had only minority stakes or even no ownership in the companies operating under the Virgin brand name.

The changing character of the Virgin Group and the maturing of its founder and leader, Richard Branson—who was increasingly committed to charitable rather than business ventures—raised troubling questions for the identity and future direction of the group. Was Virgin still an incubator of new businesses, or had it transitioned to a more conventional financially‐based holding company along the lines of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway or the Wallenberg family's Investor AB group? As it divested businesses, while retaining ...