REGINA – SaskTel on Monday offered its official response to the risk assessment report of BCE’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of MTS.
That report, commissioned in May and released June 20, was conducted by independent third party Mark H. Goldberg & Associates Inc. and grouped the risks under the major categories of regulatory, competitive and financial.
SaskTel said in its response that it agreed with the report’s assessment that potential regulatory changes resulting from the deal “represent the most fundamental set of risks”.
“SaskTel has been materially impacted (often negatively but on occasion positively) by regulatory changes and policy positions since the company came under Federal regulation in the early 2000’s”, reads the report. “In recent years, regulatory bodies have tended to treat SaskTel no differently than the national Big Three carriers (Bell, Telus, Rogers) when it comes to both competition and wireless spectrum policies. Such policy approaches have often put SaskTel at a disadvantage versus both the Big Three and new market entrants despite the fact that SaskTel represents the de-facto fourth wireless carrier in the Saskatchewan market.”
The Crown corporation added that many of the risks highlighted in the report existed prior to the proposed merger, and that is has been “proactively managing them” through its own internal processes. SaskTel did acknowledge, however, that “the magnitude of the risk has increased” in several cases.
“Where new risks have been identified or old risks enhanced by the transaction, we will be analyzing them further and looking into the steps that should be taken to effectively mitigate them as part of our strategic planning and risk management processes”, the report concludes.
