Microcell's Future
Now that Rogers Communications Inc. has spent nearly $2-billion to acquire AT&T Corp.'s 34% stake in Rogers Wireless Inc., where does that leave Microcell Telecommunications. It now seems rather unlikely Rogers would make a run at Microcell, which has been sitting in limbo since Telus made a $29-a-share bid for it earlier this year. Rogers likely doesn't have the financial appetite to spend $1.5 billion or so for Microcell, even though a deal makes some sense given they use similar technologies, and consolidation in the wireless industry would be healthy for Rogers, Telus and Bell. As Microcell, Canada's fourth largest wireless carrier, tries to carve out a viable business, it has been desperately trying a variety of marketing tactics to retain and attract customers - the latest being unlimited incoming calls. As this happens, questions are starting to be raised by analysts about whther Microcell's churn rate is significantly higher than what the compoany admits. Microcell appears to be waiting for two scenarios to materialize: its business gains momentum as some of its marketing tactics resonate in the market; or it waits until another suitor (Rogers, Craig McCaw?) come to the rescue. At any rate, the Rogers-AT&T deal should not be last major news of the year.
September 15th, 2004 at 10:36 am
Mark,
The other way of looking at the Rogers deal is to say they were clearing the decks to make a bid for Microcell. I get the feeling that they might be more open to a bid coming from Ted than from George and Darren. The renewed guidance yesterday (strange as it was 15 days before the end of quarter) was strong and if they can carry that momentum going into Christmas season they may do well. I've been pretty skeptical about their forecasts, especially the one they filed before the securities commission, but I may just be proved wrong.
An interesting combination, although the technology may be a stumbling block, would be for Virgin to get Microcell. Bell would be happy, they'd get all those prepaid customers (however many they do have) and have the SIM card advantage. But there is the Bell network they rented…
It's going to be interesting either way.