Virgin and NTL to merge, to seriously challenge Sky |
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Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:05
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LONDON - Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson is all set to make a mega deal with a merger of his flagship company Virgin Mobile with cable giant, NTL. If the deal does go through, it will create a company worth £4.5 billion on paper.
According to sources familiar with the situation, Sir Branson will let go of his 72 percent stake in Virgin and settle for a 14 percent holding in the combined company, which would boast of a total of 9 million customers in the communications and entertainment field.
The combined group is to be called the Virgin media and entertainment group and will also possess 2.5 million broadband internet customers and 4.5 million fixed-line telephone customers beside the 5 million mobile accounts. This new group will directly challenge British Sky Broadcasting, the James Murdoch-owned company, which is controlled by News Corporation. This in turn is media mogul Rupert Murdoch's flagship company that owns The Sun, Times, Sunday Times and News of The World newspapers in the UK.
The Sunday Telegraph quoted a banker as saying, "James Murdoch is going to choke on his muesli when he hears about this one. It's going to be the battle of the brands - Virgin versus Sky." The paper also revealed that NTL's chief executive Simon Duffy and Branson began secret talks of a merger nine months ago and that they finally wound up on Friday. The deal, it is reported, is subject to NTL's £3.4 billion acquisition of Telewest.
It is expected that Virgin will make a formal announcement of a takeover approach tomorrow. Under the deal Simon Duffy will retain his job, while Branson will be the single largest shareholder in the merged company.
The Virgin group will become the first company to offer the so-called "quad" package with television services, broadband, fixed line and mobile services. Sources say that Branson is also keen to acquire the football broadcast rights when they are auctioned next year.
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Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:54:46 GMT (
B Verrells ) |
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As a NTL-Telewest customer I would love to no how soon we will have HDTV- RECEIVER as I have a HD ready TV for 1 year now but no H-D TV
From Brian Verrells
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