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Branson says Virgin Cruises will sail out of Miami in 2020

June 23, 2015 at 03:04 pm EDT

MIAMI (Reuters) - Richard Branson’s Virgin Cruises will take delivery of three ships capable of carrying nearly 3,000 passengers each starting in early 2020, the British entrepreneur told reporters during a news conference on Tuesday.

"It’s no secret I’ve dreamed of building a cruise line for a very long time," said Branson, 64.

The first ship will operate out of Miami, but no decision was announced about the other two

Branson arrived at the news conference by helicopter and posed for pictures sporting a cherry red captain’s hat with matching shorts and boat shoes, flanked by two models.

Virgin Group announced the Bain Capital-backed project last December. The company plans to spend under $2 billion with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri, Branson told reporters.

Virgin is shying away from the mega-vessels that Carnival CorpN> and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd are building, which can carry more than 5,000 passengers, hoping to provide a more intimate experience to customers who might not otherwise consider cruising.

“We go against the grain,” said Virgin Cruises Chief Executive Tom McAlpine, former president of the Disney Cruise Line, a unit of Walt Disney CoN>.

The announcement came amid a pending $300 million lawsuit by former Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd CEO Colin Veitch, who oversaw Norwegian from 2000 to 2008.

In the lawsuit, filed in March, Veitch alleged that Virgin muscled him out of a plan to break into the highly profitable cruise industry with two large “ultra-ships” that would give it a foothold in the hard-to-enter business, according to the complaint.

“We’re fully confident the lawsuit doesn’t have any merit,” Branson said on Tuesday.

Branson’s Virgin companies are known for taking irreverent, playful approaches to various businesses, including airlines, rail and cell phone service.

The billionaire also took a stab at traditional business decorum during the news conference at Miami’s art museum overlooking Biscayne Bay.

“I’ve spent my life trying to get people to get rid of suits,” Branson said moments before grabbing a pair of scissors and cutting through Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s blue necktie, as well as those of two other maritime executives on stage with him.

(Editing by David Adams and Jonathan Oatis)

By Zachary Faqenson

Stocks mentioned in the article

Add to a list Add to a list 0 selected To use this feature you must be a member Log in Sign up	Price	Change	5d. change	Capi.
WALT DISNEY COMPANY (THE)	112.8 USD	-1.01%	+0.30%	207B
CARNIVAL CORPORATION	15.18 USD	+1.13%	+7.05%	19B
ROYAL CARIBBEAN GROUP	137.5 USD	+0.54%	+7.70%	35.38B
NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE HOLDINGS	19.52 USD	-57.65%	+7.93%	8.24B
FINCANTIERI S.P.A.	0.716 EUR	+0.28%	-6.89%	1.29B

Richard Branson

Telephony, music, finances, trains, airplanes or space exploration, the Virgin boss dares everything. A real bulimia which finds its roots in the aversion he has for the monopolies.

At sixteen, Branson creates the newspaper Students with the help of his friend Jonathan Holland Gems. Thanks to them, this newspaper becomes the mouthpiece for a generation of hippies opposed to the Vietnam War and engaged in the struggle for abortion rights.

At twenty, Richard Branson sold records by mail. Three years later he produced "Tubullar Bells" by Mike Oldfield which will be selected for the soundtrack of the movie The Exorcist. This enormous success attracts the best artists of the moment at Virgin Records as the Sex Pistols, Culture Club or Phil Collins.

Unformatted by business schools, the British businessman uses his intuition to engage in business more and more daring. Virgin Airways, Virgin Mobile to mention only the most important, show that there are no forbidden areas for the businessman the most admired of his generation. Icon in intuitive management, Richard Branson does not forget to be surrounded by the best persons in finance world as Gordon McCallum, a reference in the business world or Stephen Murphy, his Chief Financial officer and former of Unilever.

Some adventures such as cosmetics, clothing or vodka are failures but not for the businessman. When any other contractors consider these adventures as a failure, Richard Branson believes that these under achievements humanize the company and accentuate the friendly image of the boss.

Very sensitive to environmental issues, Richard Branson is hired to fight against global warming. In 2007 he gave twenty-five million dollars to reward initiatives that will be able to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But his most ambitious project is the conquest of space. For this, he signed a contract of fifteen million pounds with an American company for the manufacture of spacecraft and partnered with Philippe Starck for VirginGalactic. The first Virgin flight in space was planned for 2009.
In fact, like Google, Richard Branson has endorsed the principle of "don’t be a evil" (do not hurt) fighting to humanely manage a business became enormous.

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Virgin Radio Ltd.	Founder
Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. AirlinesTransportation Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. engages in the provision of air transportation services. It operates long haul services to various destinations including Las Vegas, Sydney, Tokyo, Delhi, Miami, and Shanghai. The company was founded by Richard Charles Nicholas Branson in 1984 and is headquartered in Crawley, the United Kingdom.	Founder

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Virgin Radio Ltd.

Founder