Virgin Atlantic is used to dealing with turbulence. Since Sir Richard Branson launched his first transatlantic scheduled flight in 1984, the company has negotiated a safe passage through the 1990s recession and shakeout in the airline industry, the reverberations caused by September 11 in 2001, and entrenched rivalry with British Airways – and at the same time built an award-winning airline that carries 5.5m passengers a year.

When Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets started doing business with the Virgin Group – Virgin Atlantic is No 10 in this year’s Top Track 100 league table – we fully intended to be in there for the long haul. That was over 20 years ago, and since then our relationship has developed and deepened in ways that we could not have imagined at the time.

Today, our business is not just with Virgin Atlantic, but with the whole Virgin Group, which has combined sales of £11.5 billion worldwide. As well as providing Virgin companies with standard banking services, we have been involved in arranging loan facilities to finance expansion, acquisition and flotation.

“An organisation with the breadth and ambitions of the Virgin Group needs a bank that can deliver diverse financial advice and act quickly,” said Mark Poole, finance director of the Virgin Group. “Lloyds TSB really understands our needs and offers value for money. It’s all about sector expertise, knowledge and fast delivery of solutions.”

Virgin Mobile UK came to the bank, for example, when it needed to borrow £350m in a hurry before its flotation. The mobile-phone company was originally formed as a joint venture between T-Mobile and the Virgin Group. Virgin subsequently bought out T-Mobile and then went on to float Virgin Mobile on the London Stock Exchange.

Our role was to lend the company £350m to fund the buy-out and subsequent placement, which we then syndicated to other banks. Since then, of course, the company has been bought by NTL Telewest, but the Virgin Group retained a 10.5% stake and the company has relaunched itself as Virgin Media.

With a customer as dynamic and entrepreneurial as the Virgin Group, this lending pattern has inevitably repeated itself.

When Branson’s health and fitness company, Virgin Active, wanted to buy Holmes Place and its 47 UK gyms in 2006, it called on Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets to set up a £142m loan facility. The deal created the second-largest leisure club chain in the country and involved Holmes Place’s owners, the private-equity groups Bridgepoint Capital and Permira, taking a stake in the enlarged group. Today, Virgin Active has 174 clubs around the world, has just reported a 50% growth in earnings in its latest financial year, and is looking to speed up its international expansion.

At Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets, we work hard to understand our clients’ business and markets, and to develop an open and honest relationship that allows us to lend with confidence. We have attached considerable weight to building up our own sector-specific knowledge and to providing advice to meet their needs. We also pride ourselves on having the right relationship and product partners. With the Virgin Group, our relationship director Carl Taylor is in daily contact with the group finance director Mark Poole, as well as with senior directors in the various trading groups.

We are delighted to have been voted Bank of the Year for the fourth year in a row by Britain’s finance directors. The award, sponsored by Real FD and the CBI, asks finance directors to vote on the quality of service provided by their main bank and the degree to which their relationship manager understands the businesses that they run.

Our business philosophy is to build deep, long-lasting relationships with our customers and, crucially, to support them with financial solutions. As an AAA-rated bank, we have always had a reputation for being prudent. The value of our low-risk strategy has become very evident in today’s market conditions where we have not suffered the huge losses that some banks have incurred. Indeed, our strong liquidity and funding capability have ensured that the group is still looking to grow while ensuring we support our existing customers.

Market conditions are likely to remain difficult for some time but Virgin Atlantic and other leading private companies know that we are in there for the long haul.

— Richard Dakin, managing director of major corporates and international corporate banking at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets, was talking to Nicky Willmore

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