SIR RICHARD BRANSON has taken a key step towards a summer flotation of Virgin Mobile, by instructing the £900 million-rated company to open up its financials to a select group of City analysts.

The Times has learnt that Virgin Mobile executives briefed analysts who work at the three banks advising on the float last week. The banks are Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Investec. The respective analysts will produce research around the turn of the month to help the company to settle on a flotation valuation.

Virgin is targeting £1 billion, although many in the City believe that figure represents a stretch.

In January Virgin Mobile said it would produce underlying earnings of £100 million in 2004, although there is some scepticism whether that is still sustainable after the company revised the terms of its commercial agreement with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile.

Virgin Mobile is Britain’s fifth-biggest mobile phone operation, although unlike its major competitors it does not own its own network. The company claims it has four million customers, up 48 per cent on the year, but it is thought that as many as 750,000 of these are inactive.

The company targets young consumers, with a package similar to a pre-pay offering and 3p text messages. Its advertising has featured rappers Wyclef Jean and Busta Rhymes and it has worked on a raunchy advert starring the singer Christina Aguilera.

T-Mobile carries all Virgin’s traffic. The German group, which gave up a 50 per cent stake as part of that agreement, is also eligible to receive up to £100 million from a flotation as long as the listing takes place before 2006.

No Virgin company has been listed on the London market since 1988, when Sir Richard took his holding company, Virgin Group private.

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