Virgin Group and cable operator NTL are close to agreeing a deal which will see the break up of Virgin.net, their joint ISP venture valued at £240m. NTL, according to recent reports, will take control of Virgin.net’s 560,000 dial-up internet customers while Virgin will own and operate the entertainment and leisure portal.
The deal is likely to see NTL paying Virgin £1m, in cash and shares, for their half of the business which would leave Virgin with just over 2% of NTL’s equity. It is thought that the two companies disagreed about the possibility of a flotation and NTL would not permit Virgin.net to be wholly incorporated into Virgin.com, Virgin’s internet gateway.
NTL will now fold the ISP side of Virgin.net into it’s own infrastructure and the entertainment and leisure portal, which currently attracts around 1.4m unique users per month, will be incorporated into Virgin.com.
NTL recently considered the possibility of mounting a bid for Freeserve which Dixons announced they were putting up for auction (see Dixons To Auction Freeserve), but later decided that the price was too high.
NTL: 01252 402 000
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