CRTC trials start on the Rogers-Shaw agreement that would give Big Three telcos even bigger

Key takeaways: 

• Trials will concentrate on advertising assets, though the transatlantic industry is a significant factor.
• Ben Klass states cable, internet and wireless projects at Shaw are much changed from those at Rogers, and he concerns what will occur to them if the alliance is accepted. 

The Roger-Shaw deal’s hearings to begin: 

The current intensity of the power play inside the Rogers family may be turning down, but the theatrics of making the family-run firm’s huge takeover of Shaw over the end line has only just started.

When Rogers Communications Inc. declared last March it had hit a $26-billion agreement to take over Calgary-based cable, internet and wireless provider Shaw Communications Inc., the film was immediately seen as transformative for Canada’s telecom business.

It would take an area that is already in the palms of a quite small number of firms and make it even more top-heavy, hitting millions of Canadians who use television and radio or subscribe to high-speed internet or cellular telephone facilities.

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Although the families that manage the two firms both support the agreement, it requires the OK of three different administrative companies to become official. And the first of those consent methods starts today in Gatineau, Que., as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) continues trials on what the agreement would require.

Partha Mohanram, an accounting professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, is amid those expecting the regulator takes a long, solid glimpse at the agreement because of what it would do to Canada’s already-concentrated telecom landscape.

“The regulator has to look at whether … the benefit to the shareholders outweighs the cost,” he stated in a conference. “Because it becomes worse every time there is a merger.” Source – cbc.ca