TORONTO – Wind Mobile CEO Tony Lacavera told folks at the Canadian Telecom Summit this week that sure, with the federal government denying the bid from Telus to take over Mobilicity he’d be interested in talking about buying the struggling wireless firm, but there was another thing he said that caught our attention.
Namely, while Lacavera said thank you to the federal government for its announcements on spectrum transfers Tuesday, he also had some advice for the feds as well: Lift all foreign ownership restrictions in telecom, then let Bell and Telus merge and go international.
“We should lift the remaining foreign ownership restrictions. We should then permit Bell and Telus to finally merge on the condition that they focus on real growth and expansion abroad and stop focusing their incredible wealth of human and financial resources on defensive-minded Canada-focused strategies like flanker brands and legacy media asset acquisitions,” Lacavera said during his Tuesday lunchtime keynote address.
“Let them combine, but stop the nine brands owned by three companies running two networks,” he later told Cartt.ca in an interview, referencing Rogers, Bell and Telus and their various brands. “Stop the silliness, let these guys merge and force them to go out and compete on a global basis.” Having worked with huge international carriers, Lacavera says he can see that Bell and Telus “can really stack up and I know that they’ve got real strengths that they are not leveraging by creating a Koodo or a Chatr or buying Astral.”
During the interview, Lacavera (pictured) also addressed his own situation, noting nothing has yet changed as Wind and its parent VimpelCom await an Industry Canada decision on its ownership change application announced in January. He is still looking for cash in order to potentially buy Wind back from VimpelCom, however.
The Minister’s announcement on Tuesday, however, “opens up a much broader universe of capital markets alternatives for Wind. We have a lot more spectrum road map certainty, which permits us to market our business more efficiently, more effectively to the capital markets.”
Plus, he added, the decision by Accelero Capital to purchase Allstream shows there is foreign money out there looking to land in the Canadian telecom marketplace. Now, since Accelero is owned by Naguib Sawiris, Lacavera’s original investor in the launch of Wind in Canada, there is some thought that the two could get together again and purchase Wind from VimpelCom.
While Lacavera admitted he is still searching for capital to buy, he would not address any speculation about Accelero, saying “it’s not on the table.”
