RICHARD BRANSON

Privately-owned airline Virgin Atlantic said yearly profits nearly doubled, but warned the weak economic environment would make it almost impossible for airlines to make a profit in the current year.

Privately-owned airline Virgin Atlantic said profits nearly doubled during the year to end February, despite the high fuel prices and economic slowdown that has devastated the industry.

A proposed alliance between AMR Corp's American Airlines and British Airways would create a monster monopoly, British entrepreneur Richard Branson said on Thursday.

Long-haul trips could be made in spaceships instead of planes in 20 years' time if Virgin's efforts to commercialize space travel succeed, the president of Virgin Galactic told Reuters in an interview.

Virgin Group will return to the mortgage market and obtain a license to operate a high street bank, the group's billionaire founder Richard Branson told the Times newspaper.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that the decision to nationalise Northern Rock was the right move at the right time for the right reasons. Brown was speaking at a Downing Street briefing, after the news broke on Sunday that the struggling mortgage lender would be nationalized.

Two suitors competing to rescue British bank Northern Rock have been told to improve their offers to beat the alternative of nationalization, sources familiar with the matter said. The Virgin consortium, though, has been picked as a front-runner, ahead of a rival in-house proposal led by the mortgage bank's current management team, the sources said.

Billionaire Richard Branson, banker Luqman Arnold and an in-house management team are set to pitch formal offers for Britain's Northern Rock Plc on Monday, the government's deadline for bids. Branson has said his Virgin Group VA.UL will make an offer for the troubled bank ahead of the February 4 deadline, while Arnold's investment group Olivant and the in-house team have also said they will bid.

According to a newspaper report, Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group is in the process of making an improved offer for the ailing Northern Rock bank.

Few expected to see James Murdoch overtaking his elder brother Lachlan for their father's media empire.

A spokesman from the troubled Northern Rock bank announced today that the company had borrowed a total of around £25 billion from the Bank of England since the run on the bank caused by the credit crunch, reports Reuters.

Britain won swift clearance from European Union regulators on Wednesday for rescue aid to support stricken mortgage lender Northern Rock, a casualty of the global credit crunch.

Stricken British bank Northern Rock (NRK.L) has received more rescue proposals, but warned that one of them contemplated an offer well below Tuesday's closing price, sparking a new slide in its shares on Wednesday.

Britain said it may offer financial help to potential rescuers of Northern Rock, even though this would need to be approved by the European Union, as it emerged proposals put forward so far were pitched low. Northern Rock shares tumbled over 20 percent to a new low on Monday after the bank said interest from potential suitors valued it at materially below Friday's share price.

At least four bidders are set to submit plans for stricken bank Northern Rock on Friday but its future could remain uncertain for months as the British government gauges the political fallout of its options.

There are scores of eligible Google millionaires, but as of next month, both its famed billionaire founders appear to be taken.

The former head of UK bank Abbey and veteran troubleshooter Luqman Arnold is preparing a move for Northern Rock which could avoid a sale or breakup, sending shares in the battered lender up as much as 11 percent.

Shares in stricken British mortgage bank Northern Rock tumbled over 6 percent on Monday amid concerns that potential bidders will steer clear as the turmoil in global financial markets deepens.

Virgin Atlantic is considering buying 10 longhaul aircraft worth about $3 billion to enter service around 2012.

This Friday in the UK, troubled bank Northern Rock was offered a lifeline by a consortium assembled and led by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. The group submitted a plan which would involve “a substantial cash sum… [being] injected” in a bid to save the bank, according to published reports.

Virgin Group, controlled by entrepreneur Richard Branson, is leading a consortium that has submitted a rescue plan for British bank Northern Rock that would inject a substantial cash sum, it said on Friday.