(Montreal) Quebecor cellular towers are not for sale. His boss, Pierre Karl Péladeau, does not intend to imitate his competitor Telus.
Mr. Péladeau criticized this strategy by calling it “easy solution”. “We do not need to harm our future liquidity with the additional costs of a Byzantine financial engineering structure,” he said on Thursday at a conference call to discuss quarterly results.
The businessman said that the owner of Videotron and Fizz had a fairly solid assessment and generated enough money to invest in his infrastructure. He believes that such a transaction would be expensive in the long term, if Quebecor should then pay to access his old network.
Photo Christopher Katsarov, Canadian Press Archives
Quebecor CEO, Pierre Karl Péladeau
Telus announced, last week, the separation of its cellular towers in an entity sold at 49.9 % at the deposit and placement fund for an amount of 1.26 billion. This is a first in Canada, but this strategy is a common thing in the United States and Europe.
The other major Canadian communications companies could follow suit. For his part, analyst Maher Yaghi, from Banque Scotia, sees the strategy of a favorable eye. He believes that it would be more profitable for telecommunications companies to rent access to the towers rather than stay owners.
Cable war
Québecor managed to attract thousands of wireless subscribers, but the harsh competition in the cable segment makes him lose subscribers.
The company added 72,000 wireless subscribers during the second quarter, according to the results revealed Thursday. However, she lost 3,200 Internet subscribers in early April at the end of June.
Analyst Vince Valentini, of TD securities, interprets these results as being half-fig, half-grape. He stresses that Quebecor has managed to moderate the reduction in subscriber income in the mobile telephony segment, while full of new customers. “It suggests that a price war is not necessary and unlikely. »»
The battle is harsher in the cable segment. “It is difficult to predict when competition between Bell and Quebecor will calm down,” reacted the analyst. For this reason, we believe that Quebecor is really motivated to increase his income per subscriber in the mobile telephony segment. »»
For the moment, Quebecor does not seem to want to conduct an offensive to protect its market share in the cable.
“Bell continues to be extremely aggressive with prices with cable and internet in Quebec,” replied the chief executive, Hugues Simard. We maintain our strategy not to answer. We believe that it would make no sense for Bell and we are also competitive. »»
The media sector remains under pressure. The benefit before interest, taxes and amortization (BAIIA) of the TVA group increased from 11.4 million to only 1.8 million.
The media remain a featherweight in the Quebecor Empire. The telecommunications sector generated more than 85 % of income in the second quarter.
Asked about the future of the media sector, Mr. Péladeau said that the closure of specialized channels was a possibility, but he hinted that the sale of the division or its closure was not on the table.
“There is no final solution,” he said. We will continue to support what we consider being an important active in Quebec. »»
Overall, Quebecor has unveiled results relatively similar to analysts’ expectations. Its net profit increased by 4.9 % to 217.7 million in the second quarter.
Income, for their part, totaled 1.4 billion, down 6.5 million, or 0.5 %. The profit adjusted per share established $ 0.99.
Before the publication of the results, analysts anticipated a profit per share of $ 0.98 and 1.4 billion income, according to the financial data firm Refinitiv.
Quebecor’s action lost $ 1.37, or 3.55 %, at $ 37.21 on the Toronto Stock Exchange around noon.