Montreal Tech Watch

The group led by Ontario Teachers Private Capital has reached an agreement with BCE for a friendly takeover, late last week. The deal is not final yet, as shareholders will have to agree. Here are some key facts in the deal:

• this is the biggest takeover in Canadian corporate history, at $51.7billion,
• Teachers already has 49% stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors and the Air Canada Centre,
• BCE controls Bell Canada and Telesat Canada, which operates satellite communications, and also has an interest in CTVglobemedia, which controls the CTV and the Globe and Mail,
• If successful, Teachers’ Private Capital would have 52% of BCE; Providence, 32%; Madison Dearborn, nine per cent; and other Canadian investors, seven per cent. Madison Dearborn is the only investor in the pack to be based outside Canada (Chicago)
• Teachers Private Capital is the Toronto-based Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, with assets of $106 billion in 2006, invests and administers the retirement funds for Ontario’s 167,000 teachers and 104,000 retired teachers.
• this also means BCE can be considered a full Ontarian company now, although the headquarters are not be moved to Toronto (yet)
• BCE, which has more than 54,000 employees, had annual revenue of $17.7 billion in 2006. It has 18.2 million customer connections, including 5.8 million wireless subscribers, 8.64 million phone lines, 1.94 million internet subscribers and 1.82 million satellite television subscribers.

I wrote previously about Telus negotiating with Bell for a friendly merger, but it looks like Telus executives backed out from the deal because of negative press.

If you are interested in technology and innovation news, you can forget about this deal though. This is essentially a financial agreement, and is not a validation of Bell’s strategy. The big winner here is Michael Sabia who is going to stay CEO of BCE, and who will likely get full (moral) control of the company. Because, anyway, I am not expecting ontarian teachers to revolutionize the telecommunications industry.