Richard Branson has written an open letter to Virgin employees in which he says he is willing to mortgage his private Caribbean island to save the Virgin Group.
Within the letter, Sir Richard Branson speaks of his beloved Necker Island on the edges of the British Virgin Islands that he bought when he was 29.
“Joan and I did not leave Britain for tax reasons but for our love of the beautiful British Virgin Islands and in particular Necker Island,” he said.
“Over time, we built our family home here. The rest of the island is run as a business, which employs 175 people,” he said.
“As with other Virgin assets, our team will raise as much money against the island as possible to save as many jobs as possible around the Group”.
Sir Richard Branson
His declaration came after he received criticism for asking the UK government to give his airline a £500 million loan to help it through the “devastating impact this pandemic continues to have”.
“The reality of this unprecedented crisis is that many airlines around the world need government support and many have already received it,” he said.
“We will do everything we can to keep the airline going – but we will need government support to achieve that in the face of the severe uncertainty surrounding travel today and not knowing how long the planes will be grounded for.”
It comes after the breaking news this morning that Virgin Australia has just entered voluntary administration.