Telus backs out: BCE Inc. and Telus won't unite
Round two for big Telco mergers seems set to have fallen off the rails in Canada -- round one saw Rogers Wireless merge with Microcell Communications (Fido). While bigger can sometimes be better, in the wireless world lack of competition can hurt and Canadian users may have just ended up with bigger bills, the same service, and fewer choices. Of course, said merger would have involved both wireless and wireline services of the two giants, but the wireless parts alone would have seen a combined subscriber list 10.9 million names long. Apparently BCE Inc. was in such a hurry to get this done that the time pressures are what gave Telus cold feet. Of course, a group led by Cerberus Capital Management and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (BCE's biggest shareholder) are still in the running, so expect an update as soon as the dust settles.
