Virgin Mobile USA dials up an IPO

Over the past few months, there were lots of rumors that Virgin Mobile would file to go public. Well, it came true today.

The company provides wireless services targeted at the youth market (ages 14-34). The company is a joint venture between Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) and Virgin Group.

While Sprint provides the network infrastructure, Virgin focuses on the pizazz. This is known as the MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) model.

Virgin Mobile launched in July 2002 and now has 4.88 million customers. Last year, revenues topped $1.1 billion but there was still a net loss of $36.7 million. It helps that Virgin Mobile has extensive distribution with retail giants like Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT).

Virgin Mobile's services include flexible plans, both flat per-minute rates and buckets of minutes purchased in advance. There are also stylish handsets and a myriad of entertainment applications (such as ringtones, picture messaging and games).

The lead underwriter on the IPO is Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) and the proposed ticker symbol is VM.

You can find the prospectus at the SEC web site.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.