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Virgin planning to publicly list businesses: CEO
2007-08-19
Virgin Group, which runs airline Virgin Atlantic and other well-known brands, is planning to publicly list companies it owns on the stock market, the group's chief executive said in an interview published on Monday. Speaking to The Times, Stephen Murphy, who is also the head of Virgin's investment committee, said that the company intends to operate more like a private equity firm by selling off stakes in businesses it owns, a strategy he described as "branded venture capitalism". "We think of our peer group now being like Apax and Blackstone," Murphy said, referring to private equity firms. "Once we have a company built to a point where it has stability and maturity, we will see a public exit. We are much more comfortable with that idea now but there are no firm targets of how many businesses we want to float." Murphy told the paper that even though the group is planning to float its businesses on stock exchanges, it would retain stakes in them, and appoint directors on each separate company's board to ensure the Virgin brand was protected. The Times said that Virgin Mobile USA is already planning a listing in New York, and added that the group's chain of health clubs, Virgin Active, was likely to be the next business to be floated. Virgin has also received bids for several businesses from private equity groups, the newspaper reported, with Murphy saying: "Private equity buyers have now become a viable alternative and many listings are being pre-empted by these buyers."
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