Branson

No British tycoon is more popular, few claim to be richer and none has masterminded a more recognisable brand than Richard Branson. What is behind the success of the buccaneering balloonist, the tabloids' favourite celebrity nude, the "grinning jumper" and the scourge of corporate goliaths?

Hailed as a genius, ever since his courtroom victories over British Airways and Guy Snowden, the architect of Britain's lottery, Branson has cast himself as the indefatigable avenging angel, the crusader against the wicked. With tales of a glamorously hectic lifestyle, the risk-taker has energetically sought out the media to promote the image of an honest, fun-loving man-of-the-people innovating for the sake of every Briton.

There is however an alternative Branson story, one which Branson himself has been keen to repress. Helped by eyewitness accounts of more than 250 people with direct experience of Branson, Tom Bower has uncovered a different tale to the one so eagerly promoted by Virgin's publicists. Here is the full story of Branson: his businesses, his friendships, his ambition, his law-breaking, his drug-taking, his steam-rolling tactics.

The book is an intimate scrutiny of exactly how Richard Branson created himself and sold himself. Tom Bower's biography reveals Branson to be a single-minded profiteer who, while occasionally generous to others, has a fixed purpose to enhance his family's wealth in secret offshore trust funds.

Idolised, Sir Richard has been presented as a role model for Britain's fledgling entrepreneurs. But Bower suggests that this icon's strategy - instinctive and impulsive, relying little on research or expertise - is reckless. Instead of a glittering saint, Branson emerges as a devious actor, fond of plucking for his own profit the good ideas of others.

Now fifty, Branson finds himself battling for survival. Most of his companies are losing money and he has had to sell half of his jewel, his airline Virgin Atlantic, to repay huge bank loans. Belatedly, he is trying to join the Internet and mobile telephone revolutions. Aggressively, his face is used to promote Virgin's financial services. Unfortunately all the hype has not produced the cash bonanza he desperately seeks. The man who set out to revolutionise the nation's lottery is, up close, something of a lottery himself.