Does Anyone Want BCE?

In the last week, two of the potential suitors for BCE have been dropping like flies. The latest is Telus, which issued a short two-sentence statement yesterday that the “inadequacies of BCE’s bid process did not make it possible for Telus to submit an offer”. Couple of comments: first, I have no idea what that statement actually means; and second, some lawyer somewhere made a lot of money crafting the process to say something and nothing at the same time.

Truth be told, Telus is blowing smoke and everyone knows it – or should know it. It’s a bald-face negotiating tactic to get the federal Competition Bureau to approve a potential Telus-BCE merger/deal before private equity investors swoop in for the kill. You’ve got Telus CEO Darren Entwistle running around Toronto earlier this week talking about how a Telus-BCE deal would be “good for Canada” while lobbying the Competition Bureau to get its collective ass in gear.

Truth be told, Telus wants BCE because the deal makes sense for Telus. In fact, it makes a lot more sense for Telus and Canada than having some U.S. private equity investors take “control” of BCE. But, hey this Canada where regulation and bureaucracy rule the roost.

One final point, if the Competition Bureau was so interested in maintaining competition, why did it approve Rogers’ purchase of Microcell, which reduced the number of wireless players to three from four. It seems like a strange decision given there’s so much talk these days about a fourth national carriers being allowed to enter the wireless market.