The article did confirm that Telus is shopping around. Is BC Tel a possibility ? I would think that it may be difficult to acquire the 51% of the shares of BC Tel currently owned by GTE. And if Telus was to make such a move, it would surprise me if BCE didn't make a run also. Fonorola may be a potential target too, if its deal with Sprint unravels. Other Canadian telcos, in my opinion, serve relatively insignificant markets, so they are unlikely takeover candidates for Telus. I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to potential international targets.
But from my perspective, I think Telus is a takeover target itself. Look at it this way, the Stentor consortium is a collection of the various Canadian telcos. They effectively have divided up the Canadian market into separate monopolies, each serving a separate region of the country. The most important members of Stentor are BCE (Ontario, Quebec), BC Tel (BC), and Telus (Alberta). Telus' discussions with AT&T certainly brings the future of the Stentor consortium into doubt. BCE, as the senior partner in the consortium, must be concerned about its potential demise. Here you have Telus contemplating a move to a higher level, looking perhaps to supplant BCE as the most important telco in Canada. If the AT&T deal had gone through then the consortium would have been devastated (it may still be dead, despite the deal not going through). It seems to me that BCE has to protect its turf and should take out the problem partner, before Telus does something else to challenge the status quo. Also, I would think that BCE realizes that someday the Canadian market may be open to foreign competition on the local front (probably years away. You would think that BCE would want to solidify its position as the number one player in Canada by adding Alberta (or BC) to the regions it serves, prior to the market being opened up. The US has seen huge consolidations in the telecommunications area, and will someday see competition in the local telephone arena. This to me is a preview of what someday must happen in Canada.
Apologies for the rambling. Hope this helps. Keep in mind that this is simply my humble opinion as an observer of the Canadian telco market. And I might add for full disclosure, I am very long Telus. So I hope I'm right about Telus being a potential target. But I've been wrong before (often). |
