Virgin Mobile USA, the mobile carrier part-owned by Sir Richard Branson, is to float next month in a deal expected to value the business at about $2 billion (£970 million). The New-Jersey-based carrier is lining up for a flotation on August 8 after lodging its final filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday.

In the filing, it detailed plans to raise $506 million in the offering on the New York Stock Exchange, although sources said that the figure could be higher.

The deal should net at least $250 million for Sir Richard, who owns 45 per cent of the business. The entrepreneur is expected to use the proceeds to help to fund the acquisition of a 20 per cent stake in Fly Asia Express, of Malaysia.

The float will also help Sir Richard in his informal target of having nine or ten listed companies around the world by 2010. At present the group’s listed companies comprise Virgin Media, the British communications group, and Virgin Blue, the airline in Australia.

The float marks the latest shake-up in the Virgin empire, which is already in flux with deals including the potential sale of Virgin Media to private equity and the potential acquisition of Singapore Airline’s 49 per cent stake in Virgin Atlantic.

The next expected flotation of a Virgin Group business is the float of its Virgin Active gyms business. The path for a potential £1 billion flotation was paved after Virgin Active’s recent tie-up with Holmes Place.

Since its launch in 2002, Virgin Mobile USA has established itself as one of the country’s fastest-growing mobile operations, winning nearly five million customers.

The carrier pioneered the “virtual” operator model – under which a carrier works without its own network but piggybacks on another company’s network. It was also the first to offer cheap pay-as-you-go services in the United States and found a huge following among younger people.

As well as the 45 per cent of the business owned by Sir Richard, 45 per cent is owned by Sprint and the remainder is held by other investors.

Despite its success, Sir Richard will be mindful of the initially rocky flotation of his Virgin Mobile UK business in 2004. The flotation price had to be cut at the last minute.

However, the UK operator proved a hit - the model was followed by others including Tesco Mobile - and is now part of Virgin Media, the communications group formed through a merger with the cable group NTL.

In the quarter to the end of March, Virgin Mobile USA, whose float advisers include Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, posted net income of $15.4 million on sales of $339.3 million. It claims around 15 per cent of the pay-as-you-go market, with 4.9 million customers as of March 31.

The SEC filing did not detail how many shares the company planned to sell or the expected price.

A flotation of Virgin Mobile USA was first mulled in 2005 but the plan was ditched. It is thought that a debt-raising lessened the need to raise money through a flotation.

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