Richard Branson flies into Edinburgh to meet and greet staff

Long and slim, in a plain but expensive-looking white shirt and a black velvet sports jacket and jeans, Britain’s most recognisable multi-billionaire businessman close up is starting to look his 62 years.

But he hasn’t stopped since he woke at 6:30am, making stops in Norwich and Newcastle, which is now the operational home of Virgin Money after Sir Richard and his team successfully wrapped up the £747 million acquisition of Northern Rock.

There was a buzzing crowd awaiting his arrival at Edinburgh’s George Hotel, but the scenes in Newcastle earlier in the day were even more boisterous.

“He is like a rock star,” one of his battalions of staff noted, as we waited for him to finish briefings with his diary controllers – time is tight.

Sir Richard’s Virgin Group has created and still runs hundreds of companies worldwide, including the bank, the airline, and even Virgin Galactic, the first commercial space business in the world. It was in rock’n’roll – selling records – that he got his start.

Did he ever think he would be that stuffy and perhaps now reviled thing – a banker?

“I have to admit, as I was standing in the bank welcoming customers today, I did have a flashback to the Sex Pistols days,” says Sir Richard of the iconic punk rock group who signed a record deal with his new record label in the 1970s. “I did have a wry smile to myself. But time moves on. The Virgin brand has matured, as have we all.”

He notes that his group has actually had a financial services company for 17 years, but he figures that now he has 75 bank branches – which he intends to expand to 200 in the next five years – the banking world needs a shake-up.

“Banking has been discredited and has nearly brought the world to its knees. We hope to be a knight, literally, that is going to ride in and offer a real difference,” he said.

The past few weeks has been a whirlwind for Sir Richard. In November, he bought a bank with a million customers, then less than a month later he was giving away his daughter, Holly, 30, who was getting married on his Caribbean island, Necker. The wedding went ahead despite his £60m estate there having been razed in a fire in August.

“We lost our home in a lightning strike. We had a wedding under the stars. It couldn’t have been more perfect,” says the famously ever-optimistic Sir Richard. “We are now rebuilding and we will have our beautiful home back in 12 months’ time – and hopefully I will be a grandfather by then.”

Yet this aspiring doting father still hopes to be the first passenger when Virgin Galactic makes its first foray into space from New Mexico.

“Hopefully by the end of this year we will be up and away,” says Sir Richard, who can’t help but think like an entrepreneur.

“We may well offer people who bank with us special terms. And some of our employees today were asking for special rates, and I’m sure we will seriously consider that. One company can help another.”

The newly married Holly, a doctor, may eventually succeed Sir Richard as chairman of the group, but he insists he will never retire.

“I do it all myself, I don’t actually have many other people,” he jokes about how it’s possible to keep so many interests afloat, and his glamorous team of PAs laugh with him. “We have the best team of people of any company in the world who believe in what they are doing and enjoy it.

“I sprinkle dust. I am there to push the group forward into new areas, and put things on the map like today and to fire-fight when things go wrong. A lot of my time is spent on the non-profit side.”

He also hopes to return to Edinburgh next year for the end of festival fireworks, although he looks a little surprised to find that his company is the annual event’s main sponsor. Virgin Money celebrated its first year as title sponsorship of the fireworks display, having replaced Bank of Scotland in September.

“We are sponsoring, it are we?” he asks, looking towards another member of staff who nods that, yes, they do. “Why didn’t I get an invite? I will expect an invite. We are paying for it. I like fireworks too. Maybe I’ll bring my grandson.”