TELUS Declines to Bid on BCE

Just five days after confirming talks to acquire national telco Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), potential suitor and strategic technology innovator TELUS Inc. said in a statement that it will not submit a bid for the company.

While the company didn’t say its interest in BCE had ended, it did say Tuesday that the inadequacies of its target’s bid process “did not make it possible for TELUS to submit an offer.”

So for now, a deal that would result in the combination of vast wireless and wireline assets serving residential and business users across Canada is a no-go. As part of a strategic review process BCE began on April 17, the company had sought offers from interested parties. 

TELUS did not close the door on a deal with or for BCE if somehow BCE’s bid process could be reworked to its liking. It is also unclear whom beyond BCE has expressed interested in the diversified communications service provider.

Beyond being an early deployer of IPTV, TELUS has invested in more than just network hardware to fuel its drive forward. TELUS and Cisco Systems Inc. are both investors in Widevine Inc., a maker of downloadable content security software for devices such as set-top boxes.

The Canadian telco also is one of two North American-based service providers that are full members of the IPSphere Forum, a global carrier and infrastructure supplier group working on IP-based standards for next-gen networks.

Telus said it has $8.8 billion of annual revenue and 10.8 million customer connections including 5.1 million wireless subscribers, 4.5 million wireline network access lines and 1.1 million Internet subscribers. It provides a range of communications products and services including data, IP, voice, entertainment and video.

Bell Canada Enterprises www.bell.ca
TELUS Inc. www.telus.com

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