Virgin Mobile today announced a target range of 235p-285p per share for its stock market float. This values the mobile virtual network operator at £588m to £713m ($1.08bn - $1.32bn) net and is less than expected. Analysts had targeted up to £1bn for the float. The enterprise value of the business is set at £900m and £1.025bn, with Virgin Mobile carrying £311m in debt on its books. It makes its debut on the London Stock Exchange on 21 July.

Virgin Mobile will float 37-47 per cent of the business, depending on demand. This will give Richard Branson's Virgin Group £230m to £275m. The City expects Branson to pump the money into a new US domestic airline, which launches next year.

And let's not forget T-Mobile, which handles the technical stuff for Virgin Mobile, leaving its customer to concentrate on the billing and customer relationships. It gets 25 per cent (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/29/virgin_mobile_preps/) of any equity value over £550m, capped at £100m, so it will be very disappointed if Virgin Mobile is pumped out at the lower price.

There's a lot more background in the press release (http://about.virginmobile.com/about/media/news/corporate/2004/2004-07-07/). You are not supposed to read it if you live in the US, Canada, Australia or Japan. So access may be blocked if you come from these countries. ®

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Virgin Mobile gives it up for charity (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/06/virgin_charity/)
Virgin will float next month (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/30/virgin_float_go/)
T-Mobile and Virgin settle long-running dispute (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/30/tmobile_and_virgin_settle_longrunning/)