However, Sir Richard Branson, who owns 72% of the company, said that he thought a deal would still be done.
This morning, the Virgin boss told BBC Radio Five Live: "We have got small shareholders in Virgin Mobile who must be protected. That is why we are leaving it to the independent directors, and did not send our own directors to last night's board meeting."
Yesterday in Sydney he expressed his support for a deal saying it was "a marriage that everyone wants to do". He said that he saw a deal being reached between NTL and Virgin Mobile's directors and NTL.
NTL announced its 323p-a-share bid on Monday, which will make Branson the biggest shareholder in a combined Virgin Mobile and NTL with a 14% holding, and would rename the cable firm as Virgin Media allowing it to offer a complete range of cable, mobile and fixed-line telephone services.
Jeremy Garcia, an NTL spokesman, said the company would not comment on Virgin's rejection of the offer until it had had a chance to review it.
At the same time cable firm Telewest, which is in the process of being bought by NTL, said that it might reverse the deal and in effect take over NTL to avoid paying the BBC a £100m change-of-control payment relating to UKTV.
Telewest has to make the payment as part of its joint venture television deal with BBC Worldwide for the UKTV group of channels that the two operate.
Neil Smith, finance director of Telewest, told the Financial Times that the legal structure of the £3.8bn merger with NTL could be flipped "without any economic impact on the deal".
If Telewest becomes the firm acquiring NTL, it would escape the need to make the £100m payment to the BBC.
James Mooney, chairman of NTL, told a UBS conference in New York: "We're very confident we have a BBC solution, which does not involve paying sums of money bigger than a bread basket."
The plans Mooney said would be announced within two weeks.
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