The board, led by Charles Gurassa, wants to see an offer that is “at least” as high as NTL’s previously proposed all-paper alternative. Because of an increase in NTL’s share price, that is now worth 368p.

After Virgin Mobile rejected NTL’s original 323p offer in December, the cable company has been considering whether to come back with a higher offer to woo the company’s minority investors. No move is expected for at least another week, as NTL and its advisers regroup after the Christmas break, but any new offer would be in line with the stock alternative.

NTL originally offered 323p in cash, or 0.09298 of its own shares, last month. That offer was verbally accepted by Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Group, owns 72 per cent of Virgin Mobile.

However, it failed to win over Virgin Mobile’s board. Despite being the largest shareholder, Virgin Group has only one director on the board of Virgin Mobile, which otherwise comprises four non-executives and three employees.

The Virgin Mobile board felt that the original premium being offered by NTL — just 4 per cent — was too low. Mr Gurassa and the other independents were also informed of the long-running talks between Sir Richard and NTL’s chief executive at the time, Simon Duffy, only as news of the approach leaked out.

A new offer at 360p would still be finely priced compared with other recent telecoms deals. At a premium of 16 per cent, it would be lower than Telefónica’s £17.7 billion purchase of O2, which was priced 22 per cent above the previous trading day’s share price.

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