Northern Rock buy no rip-off, says Richard Branson

Sir Richard Branson today denied that the taxpayer had been ripped off in his Virgin Money's £747 million takeover of Northern Rock.

"We paid twice what a normal bank is worth," he told the Evening Standard. "That's because it's worth more to us and what we can do with it under the Virgin name. We think we can get it into profit quickly. Hopefully the year after next."

Virgin Money originally tried to buy Northern Rock four years ago but its bid was rejected days before the Labour Government nationalised the former building society in February 2008.

Branson said: "I think we would have made a good deal of both the good bank and bad bank last time. But that's history now."

Branson said Virgin Money was still looking for further acquisitions but not the branches Lloyds is being forced to sell. He added: "There are one or two things we have in mind, including Bank of America's credit-card business."

The multi-millionaire was hosting his Virgin Unite's annual Rock the Kasbah gig in Los Angeles on Wednesday night when he received a text from Virgin Money chief executive Jayne-Anne Gadhia telling him they had won the bid. He said: "We had been in exclusive negotiations for a week so I knew it was looking good. The Pussy Cat Dolls were on stage when I got the text. Obviously we cracked open a bottle of champagne. Actually we did the same when the bid was turned down three years ago to console ourselves."

Branson has no plans to change the name from Virgin Money once it takes on the 75 Rock branches. He said: "I feel the word bank has become discredited so we'll stick with Money. We are not going to be staid as with anything we do under the Virgin brand and we won't take ourselves too seriously just because we are a bank."