MANY TIMES A VIRGIN

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Or ask British Airways. In 1991 he attacked powerful B.A. for "unbelievable tactics to try to push us over the cliff." B.A. had launched a nasty campaign to thwart Virgin, starting with interceptions of Virgin customers in the terminals and going as far as breaking into Virgin's computers to pirate its passenger lists. Branson sued, won--and then sued again. "We came out stronger as a result," he observes. The guy is litigious enough to qualify for American citizenship. He and GTech, an American partner in a group that bested him for the right to run the British lottery, are locked in a bitter two-way libel action. He is also battling a sexual-harassment suit brought by a former employee, who accuses Branson of groping her at a company outing. He says he will fight the charges all the way.

It is typical for entrepreneurs such as Branson to be great at creating companies and less so at running them. In earlier years Branson's impetuous antimanagement style caused internal crises, most memorably when his oldest friend and first partner, Nikolas Powell, left in anger over Branson's undisciplined spending. Later Branson rode roughshod over board objections to starting an airline (with one plane). Yet Virgin Atlantic Airlines is now solidly in the black, after years of marginal results. Retailing is still dodgy: Virgin megastores were a megaflop in Germany, but are thriving from Los Angeles to Paris to Tokyo. Tot it all up, and Virgin enterprises are logging their best year ever, according to Whitehorn, with revenues of $3.4 billion and pretax profits of $416 million projected for the year ending in July. That's a 12% margin--not great but quite respectable.

Branson, of course, doesn't play for money. His personal fortune, estimated at $1.16 billion, ranks him 12th on the London Sunday Times's latest list of the 500 richest Brits. He thrives on creating companies, building an organization and then hiving off a piece to seed a new venture. And always there is Branson at the hub. "He is incredibly creative, always finding new approaches," Frost comments. "Most interesting is how he organizes the companies. He is at the center--there is no corporate headquarters, no large corporate structure." Philip Beresford, who compiles the richest-500 list, asks the logical question, "How far can Branson extend himself without imploding? The brand name may exist only as long as he is alive. He keeps the whole thing fizzing."

What's bubbling up next? The possibilities are endless. At a lunch in New York recently, Branson casually talked about getting back into the record industry. He sold Virgin Records, his invention as a cheeky novice of 19, to Thorn EMI, tearfully, for almost $1 billion in 1992, when he desperately needed funds to buy back his company after a frustrating year as a public corporation. Clearly, he longs to return to the business. But didn't EMI make him sign a "noncompete" clause to keep him out of the industry? "Oh, yes," says Branson, breaking into that disarming grin. "It expired last week."

--With reporting by Helen Gibson/London