Branson breathes life into Virgin Mobile, NTL merger

By Steve Malone

Posted on 17 Jan 2006 at 10:30

Flamboyant entrepreneur Richard Branson has offered to forgo a £42 million payday in order to finalise a deal with cable company NTL.

Last month an $817m bid for the Virgin Mobile phone business was rejected by the board even though Branson, who owns a 71.3 per cent stake in the business had given the deal his backing. The board considered the offer too low. Now Branson is giving up some of his share to make the deal more attractive to the other shareholders. He would receive 349 pence per share whilst the other shareholders would receive 372p per share. This is considerable more than the initial 323 pence per share offer.

If the deal goes through it would create Britain's first 'quadruple play' telecoms organisation able to offer subscription TV, broadband, landline and mobile telephony in a single package with a single bill.

Naturally Branson would play a major part in the new company who would hopefully bring some of his reputation for service to NTL whose customer relations have been less than perfect over the past few years. Although anyone who has travelled on Virgin Trains knows there are limits to even Branson's Midas touch.