TORONTO – Last week we published a story touting how new wireless company Globalive (to be branded as Wind) wants its primary Canadian banker to remain not only secret, but super-secret, if and when it meets the CRTC.
They would like to bring a representative from the bank in to its September 23rd hearing to tell the Commission how challenging it is for such a start-up to raise the money needed to launch in a competitive wireless marketplace dominated by three huge players, among other financial matters.
(The Regulator, due to concerns voiced by a number of people and companies, is examining Globalive’s ownership structure for the required “Canadian-ness”, given that Egyptian-based Orascom Telecom has provided much of the required start-up funding. It’s a ‘Type 4’ review of its ownership and control, “given the complexity of Globalive’s corporate structure and financing arrangements,” said the Commission when it opened the proceeding in July.)
After a chat with Wind CEO Ken Campbell (and a couple of off-the-record chats with some other highly placed folks who asked to remain anonymous), there appears to be nothing more sinister here than a bank (and it is one of the big five banks) wanting to hang onto the existing business it does with the wireless incumbents while earning additional, new, work with Globalive.
The potential for a bank to lose existing business by backing the newcomer is real, not imagined, insisted our off-the-record callers.
With the sway that Rogers, Bell and Telus hold in the lending community, Globalive’s bank has told the company it won’t appear in front of the Commission with them unless they can be assured of complete anonymity.
“It was a request by the bank to maintain their anonymity as they give some insight into the process of raising Canadian capital,” insisted Campbell in an interview with Cartt.ca.
And if the Commission says no to the uber-secrecy request? “We simply won’t have somebody from the finance industry giving some insight into the situation with regard to raising funds in today’s market,” he added.
“It’s simply a question of wanting to appear in a public forum talking about the challenges of raising Canadian equity.” That is, without its current client or clients finding out it’s lending to a pesky new competitor.
And as for the speculation that the request Globalive made might be its way of getting Orascom CEO Naguib Sawiris in and out of Ottawa as undetected as possible, Campbell laughed.
“If the CEO of Orascom were to come, it’d be through the front door,” added the Canadian executive.
“There’s nothing mysterious about this. There’s no big secret… and we’re very confident with our submission, having gone through the (ownership) test with Industry Canada on March 13th.”
As for when Wind will officially blow into the market? “As we’ve said, we’re looking toward the end of the year or early next,” Campbell added.
