Richard Branson Starts Record Label

British entrepreneur Richard Branson launched his V2 music label, announcing that he had already signed three little-known British acts. The launch comes 4 1/2 years after he sold Virgin Records--the company he started as a teenager in the late 1960s--to EMI. “I regretted selling Virgin almost from the word go,” he said. Virgin Records, which launched acts as diverse as Genesis and the Sex Pistols in its 1970s heyday, provided Branson with the basis for an empire that now includes soft drinks, an airline, and broadcast and print media.