UPDATE: Without KPMG pass, BCE deal "unlikely to proceed"

MONTREAL – BCE released a statement Wednesday morning that due to the current market conditions, accounting firm KPMG has told the big telco that it can’t deliver a positive opinion that BCE would meet the solvency tests as defined in the privatization agreement by the December 11th closure deadline. “The receipt at the effective time of a positive solvency opinion is a condition to the closing of the transaction,” says this morning’s release. The transaction, of course, is the world’s largest-ever leveraged buyout of Bell Canada Enterprises, one valued at $51-billion, and put together last year (prior to the world...