TORONTO – Rogers Communications continued cutting its workforce this week as news broke on just how many positions have been eliminated by the cable, wireless and media giant of late.
While a number of folks on the media (primarily in magazine publishing) side were let go earlier in the year, Canadian Press reported Thursday that a total of 900 positions have been or are currently being eliminated.
Rogers VP communications Terrie Tweddle confirmed to Cartt.ca that this week’s news is the continuation of what we reported in October and that the number of positions eliminated are primarily in the management ranks and in the low single-digits in terms of percentage of total RCI employees (which is somewhere around 33,000).
This follows a shuffle atop the company, announced in September, where the leadership of Rogers Wireless now oversee the Communications division, which includes Cable.
According to several current and former Rogers employees who spoke to Cartt.ca on condition of anonymity, a number of long-serving and senior folks have voluntarily taken severance packages, such as former Rogers Cable Ottawa general manager Robyn McIntyre and director of cable technology approval Len McArthur.
However, morale has taken a hit on the cable side of the business as several sources called the moves a “wireless takeover” of the company.
While this is going on, Rogers today announced the purchase of $163 million of Cogeco Cable and Cogeco Inc. shares, bringing RCI’s ownership of Cogeco to 29.8% of the subordinate voting shares, and 20.2% of the equity of Cogeco Cable Inc. It also owns 5.02 million subordinate voting shares of Cogeco Inc., which represents approximately 33.6% of the subordinate voting shares, and 29.9% of its equity.
National Bank Financial analyst Greg MacDonald, in an e-mail to investors, called the move a “creeping takeover” of Cogeco by Rogers. “With the stock up 7% the market is concluding that this transaction brings Rogers closer to acquiring Cogeco outright,” wrote MacDonald.
“This is technically true, though we would not assume a transaction is imminent. In our view, the stock will respond positively in the near term though once the market correctly concludes that the controlling shareholder (Audet family) is not a seller the stock will likely settle back down.”
And when you add this to the recent $4 billion shelf prospectus and the that Rogers and Bragg Communications have been talking turkey recently, it appears Thursday’s news won’t be the last for the big red machine.
– Greg O’Brien
