Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate and investor best known as the founder of Virgin Group which comprises more than 400 companies At the age of sixteen his first business venture was a magazine called Student In 1970 he set up a mailorder record business In 1972 he opened a chain of record stores Virgin Records later known as Virgin Megastores Bransons Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s as he set up Virgin Atlantic and expanded the Virgin Records music label According to the Forbes 2012 list of billionaires Branson is the sixth richest citizen of the United Kingdom with an estimated net worth of US46 billion Description above from the Wikipedia article Richard Branson licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia