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Telus beats Bell Canada and Rogers Communications in Q2′08 contract subscribers add (Canada)

  • August 11th, 2008
  • 12:58 pm

Telus Communications, Canada, has posted net profit of CAD267 million (USD250 million) for Q2′08,  up from CAD253 million in the same quarter of 2007, on revenues that increased by 7.7% year-on-year to CAD2.40 billion.

EBITDA reached CAD918 million, up 3.7% from 2Q07. Wireless turnover has climbed 9% in the same period to CAD1.15 billion, driving EBITDA up 7.6% to CAD485 million. Mobile operations were boosted by higher data revenues and the recent launch of Telus’s discount brand Koodo Mobile.

The company said it added 176,000 new wireless subscribers in Q2, including 157,000 post-paid subscribers, higher than the 2Q contract user net additions reported by rivals Bell Canada and Rogers Communications.

   

Telus’s business telephony services deregulated (Canada)

  • October 1st, 2007
  • 9:41 am

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has deregulated Vancouver-based telco Telus Communications’ local telephony services for business customers in 35 local exchanges in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec, covering all major metropolitan areas in those provinces. The move follows the deregulation of Telus’s residential local telephony services in various regional markets, which began in July, and similar allowances granted to other incumbent telcos, including the largest fixed line provider in the country, Bell Canada. The regulator’s new rules allow incumbent PSTN operators to apply for deregulation in any community where customers have a choice of service providers and where they can meet specific quality of service measures for six months. Local business services will be deregulated where there is a choice of at least two phone providers with their own network infrastructure. Telus is Canada’s second largest fixed line operator, with 4.5 million local access lines in service and over a million high speed internet subscribers at the end of June 2007.

   

 

Bell rings a first with ‘unlimited’ 3.5G data service (Canada)

  • September 23rd, 2007
  • 2:30 pm

Bell Canada today launched an unlimited data service, allowing notebook owners with a free ExpressCard or PC Card slot to connect to the internet without worrying about bandwidth limits or access to a Wi-Fi hotspot. The plan utilises several of the operator’s access technologies including its faster EV-DO Revision A network, offering theoretical peak connection speeds of 3.1Mbps (downlink) and 1.8Mbps (uplink). The service is available now for CAD75 (USD74) per month plus a CAD9 access fee and the price of an adapter card; no mention has been made of extending the feature to cellphones.

   

 

SME telephony markets deregulated (Canada)

  • September 18th, 2007
  • 8:09 am

Bell Canada has been given clearance by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to set its own fixed line telephony rates for SMEs in 59 large urban markets across Ontario and Quebec, including Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. The incumbent telco’s rates for small businesses in smaller metropolitan areas were deemed by the regulator to lack sufficient competition to warrant deregulation. Recent deregulation in the residential telephony sector has already seen Bell, its sister telco Bell Aliant, and fellow regional incumbents Telus, MTS Allstream and SaskTel, offer discounted prices for home telephone services and introduce options for consumers to bundle landlines with other services, including ADSL internet and TV, for further discounts. The rule changes have allowed the wireline operators to compete more effectively with cablecos such as Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco, Videotron, Access and Eastlink.

   

 

Bell shareholders to ring the changes(Canada)

  • August 9th, 2007
  • 2:57 pm

Shareholders of Bell Canada Inc (BCE) will vote on the privatisation of the company at a special shareholders’ meeting next month, Canada’s largest phone company announced yesterday. Common and preferred shareholders will gather in Montreal on 21 September to cast their votes on the buyout led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners. The leveraged buyout deal is valued at CAD51.7 billion (USD48.5 billion), including CAD34.8 billion in cash and CAD16.9 billion of debt, preferred equity and minority interests, or CAD42.75 cash per share, representing a 40% premium over the average trading price of BCE shares in the first quarter of 2007. At the end of June the BCE board agreed to the consortium’s offer, which has secured financing from a syndicate of banks.

   

 

Videotron halfway to a million phone users

  • July 16th, 2007
  • 3:27 pm

Videotron, the largest cable operator in Quebec, has announced that it has reached the benchmark of 500,000 residential and business customers for its cable telephony service. The company says its telephone service is now available in all of the large urban centres located in the areas it serves, covering more than 83% of this territory. Videotron passed the 400,000 subscriber mark in early February. Most of its phone users have been poached from Quebec’s main wireline incumbent Bell Canada, which is losing an estimated 20,000 subscribers to Videotron every month. Nationwide, Bell lost 107,000 wireline customers in the first quarter of 2007, thanks to aggressive cable competitors like Videotron in Quebec and Rogers in Ontario.

   

 

Bidding for Bell Canada may not be over

  • July 4th, 2007
  • 11:45 am

The bidding may not be over for the parent of Bell Canada, which over the weekend agreed to a buyout offer of $35.1 billion from a consortium led by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board in the biggest Canadian takeover ever.

The group led by the pension plan beat out several other bidders including New York-based Cerberus Capital Management with billionaire Hong Kong-based Canadian citizen Richard Li’s Pacific Century Group, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board with backing from American buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

Telus, Canada’s second largest telecom, pulled out of the bidding for Bell Canada parent BCE, Canada’s biggest telecom company.

But Telus CEO Darren Entwistle told the Globe and Mail his Vancouver-based company hasn’t ruled out taking a run at Bell Canada.

“It’s been a hallmark of our company that we do not close doors,” Entwistle said, without signaling which way he was leaning. “We keep our options open and this is no exception.”

Bell Canada CEO Michael Sabia acknowledged the possibility of a hostile bid when he told reporters that the company’s board “has a fiduciary obligation to continue to be open to superior proposals.”

A source close to Cerberus as saying they have not given up on acquiring Bell.

In the deal for BCE, Thomson estimates that the buyers would also take on about $12.1 billion in net debt.

The deal will require approval from shareholders as well as federal government regulators. Sabia said he expects the deal to close in the first quarter of 2008.

 

   
 

Two domestic firms pull out of BCE bidding group

  • June 26th, 2007
  • 2:06 pm

According to Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail, two domestic companies, private equity house Onex and pension fund Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, have pulled out of a planned consortium bid for a controlling stake in the country’s largest telecoms group, BCE, parent of Bell Canada and Bell Aliant. The pair were part of a bidding group led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and including US buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, but withdrew amid concerns about the process and the surprise emergence of rival national telco TELUS as a participant in merger talks with BCE. The Canada Pension Plan consortium was reportedly assembled with assistance from BCE chief executive officer Michael Sabia and was thought to be the preferred bidder, but the departure of two key players could critically derail its ambitions.

Meanwhile, a rival consortium, led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, has become the first of the potential bidders for BCE to formally confirm that it will make an offer for the firm, valued at around CAD32 billion (USD30 billion), in partnership with US-based Providence Equity Partners and with debt backing from Citigroup, Toronto Dominion Bank and Deutsche Bank. A third group aiming to launch a leveraged buyout consists of the Hospitals of Ontario Pension Plan, US-based Cerberus Capital Management, Pacific Century Group (led by Hong Kong telecoms billionaire Richard Li) and, according to some reports, CanWest Global Communications (parent of the National Post).

There is also another alternative offer on the table for BCE to consider. Last Friday, Toronto-based investment bank Catalyst broached a complex proposal to recapitalise and preserve BCE as a broadly held stand-alone Canadian-owned public company. It is advancing an all-paper transaction, in which BCE stockholders would receive one so-called ‘stapled security’ – combining equity and a subordinated debt component – for each of their shares. The ownership of Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) is distributed, with shares listed in Canada, the USA and Europe; its largest single shareholder is the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (6.3%).

   
 

Bell Mobility users get Sirius Satellite Radio programming

  • June 19th, 2007
  • 2:36 pm

Bell Canada is exclusively offering commercial-free music programming from Sirius Satellite Radio on Bell Mobility multimedia handsets. The Sirius channels are streamed directly to Bell Mobility phones via the Bell high-speed mobile network for CAD 8 a month.

   

KKR eyes takeover bid for Canada’s BCE - report

  • March 29th, 2007
  • 3:28 pm

Telecompaper writes…US-based private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) is eyeing a possible takeover bid for BCE, owner of Bell Canada, reports the Toronto Globe & Mail. The acquisition of BCE would be the largest acquisition in Canada’s corporate history, and one of the largest leveraged buyouts worldwide. According to the paper’s sources, KKR has had at least two meetings with top officials at BCE, led by CEO Michael Sabia. KKR would not acquire BCE on its own due to government laws which block foreigners from owning over 46 percent of the voting shares of a telecommunications firm. According to sources close to the talks, KKR has attempted to recruit Canadian partners and has had talks with top pension funds, including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. BCE would neither confirm nor deny an approach.