Virgin Mobile sends “bite-sized boredom busters” like celebrity gossip over its phones to keep users amused. Shareholders in the UK mobile phone operator must now decide what will make them happy – cash or shares in NTL, whose offer for Virgin Mobile has finally been recommended by the board. The deal offers investors either 372p in cash for each Virgin Mobile share, or 0.23 NTL shares for each share, or a mix of cash and stock, valued at 311p a share plus 67p cash.

Richard Branson, whose Virgin Group owns nearly three-quarters of Virgin Mobile, will take the third option. He agreed this after Virgin Mobile’s board rejected the initial offer from NTL in December as unfair for minority shareholders. The choice facing them now depends on their view of the enlarged group’s future prospects.