Virgin Mobile has been acquired by NTL, the UK cable operator for a sale price of £962m. The deal completes a quadruple play of services for NTL – it can now offer wireless mobile phone capability along with its existing fixed line services, broadband and cable television. NTL will rebrand all these services under the Virgin name. Virgin mobile, who rejected NTL’s previous offer in December 2005 as too low, accepted NTL’s offer of 372p per share in cash, 389p in NTL shares or 67p cash and 311p in shares. Richard Branson, who owns 71% of Virgin mobile, is taking the cash and shares option, giving him a 10.6% stake in the combined company. Virgin mobile’s American counterpart, Virgin Mobile USA Inc., is not affected. Virgin mobile has 4.3 million pre-pay customers in the UK.