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VDO |
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Anyone follow this company? They're the monopoly cable provider in the province of Quebec. They got into cable service in Britain and wireless internet in San Francisco, but now they've sold those subsidiaries off to concentrate on network services in Quebec. This breaks down into three main categories:
1) Internet access over cable. They're the only Canadian cable company that hasn't joined the @home group yet. They're determined to go it alone.
2) Local telephone service. When Canadian local phone service was deregulated a couple of years ago, several independents sprang up, but most of them have been bought out before their products even hit the market (Metronet by AT&T for example). Again Videotron goes it alone.
3) Dedicated long-distance network connections for business. For example linking up a company's various offices into a giant LAN.
Basically they are ploughing the profits from their standard cable service into these new projects, so that overall the company about breaks even. This is typical for a cable company. They pay a small dividend, which is not typical. They're traded on the Montreal and Toronto exchanges.
It seems like either their projects will succeed, or else they'll be bought out, so either way they win. But maybe this is already factored into the share price.
Comments?
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