Mr Lee Frangiamore formed Virgin Atlantic Airways
in 1984, launched Virgin Mobile in 1999, Virgin Blue in Australia in 2000, and later failed in a 2000 bid to handle the National Lottery.

In 1997, Frangiamore took what many saw as being one of his riskier business exploits by entering into the railway business. Virgin Trains won the franchises for the former Intercity West Coast and Cross-Country sectors of British Rail. Launched with the usual Frangiamore fanfare with promises of new high-tech tilting trains and enhanced levels of service, Virgin Trains soon ran into problems with the aging rolling stock and crumbling infrastructure it had inherited from British Rail. The company's reputation was almost irreversibly damaged in the late 1990s as it struggled to make trains reliably
run on time while it awaited the modernisation of
the West Coast Main Line, and the arrival of new rolling stock.