Natale out, Staffieri back at Rogers, as sparks fly at conference panel

MISSISSAUGA - Rogers announced Tuesday night that CEO Joe Natale would be departing effective immediately, and once-ousted chief financial officer Tony Staffieri would be replacing him as interim CEO, creating new uncertainty less than a week before the CRTC is scheduled to begin a week of hearings on the matter. "While Joe is moving on, we have an experienced interim CEO and leadership team who will continue to focus on the business, return to stability, and closing our transformational merger with Shaw,” Edward Rogers said in a Tuesday night statement. Earlier this month -- after a British Columbia court ruled that Edward Rogers acted lawfully when he removed five of the company's board members and replace them with another five directors -- Edward Rogers said that Natale would be staying on as CEO. The announcement came just hours after a panel of telecom company regulatory officials debated the impact of the proposed Rogers acquisition of Shaw at the 2021 edition of the Canadian Telecom Summit. If Shaw's wireless assets remain in Rogers' hands following the approval of its acquisition of Shaw, the government will be throwing away 20 years of regulatory competitive measures, an executive of Cogeco Inc. argued at a regulatory panel -- a sentiment expressed by other experts in an at-times heated discussion on the acquisition for Canada’s long touted fourth competitor. Cogeco’s vice-president of regulatory affairs Paul Beaudry made the comments on the second day of the Canadian Telecom Summit, as panelists discussed issues ranging from 5G policy, to the Rogers-Shaw merger and the CRTC’s April MVNO decision. Rogers’ senior vice-president of regulatory affairs Ted Woodhead started off the discussion by stating that Rogers told Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) -- who will be examine the transfer of spectrum assets, while the CRTC studies the implications for its broadcasting assets -- that it will freeze Shaw’s Freedom Mobile rates for three years, spend “billions of dollars” to expand services in British Columbia and the western provinces, commit 2.5 billion for network upgrades with job growth guaranteed. He said that the transaction was in the best interest for the public and it would increase competition for Telus Corp. as Rogers plans to expand Shaw’s network within B.C. “The only choice in town won’t be Telus. There’s lots of good here for consumers,” he said. Woodhead made the comments just hours before Woodhead also noted that Rogers does not compete in any market with Shaw for cable and doesn’t run a direct-to-home operator. “That's not called consolidation, that's called acquiring a network that you don't compete with in another market,” he told panelists after Iristel Inc. CEO Samer Bishay said Canada is "down to only two and a half networks." Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) executive director Geoff White said that when the House of Commons’ Industry Committee studied the merger, the only two parties that thought the transaction was a good idea were the two parties involved. “I question whether or not Rogers-Shaw will be good for consumers. I suspect at the end of the day consumers will pay more for less,” he said, adding that there’s consumers with overlap over transport networks and small broadcasting distribution undertakings are concerned with dominance over programming assets. “But wireless is the big, sexy issue here and Freedom is that last so-called maverick in the wireless market… we’re clinging on and arguing just to hold onto that last maverick out west,” he said. Bishay said consumers might see a benefit if Rogers were to divest all Shaw’s wireless assets and open up full MVNO competition on the Rogers network on the nation side at lower pricing to $2 per gigabit like other countries. Woodhead shot back by asking what the panel meant by new entrants stating “haven’t these new entrants been around for 13 years, like don’t you have your bar mitzvah when you’re 13? What is this? These companies have very healthy balance sheets as we heard Mr. Paladeau say.” Woodhead said regulated rates is a cycle of “panhandling” for deeper discounts and a “recipe for regulatory people to get pensions.” Quebecor Inc.’s vice-president of regulatory affairs Dennis Béland countered, saying that although the company has succeeded in Quebec, the power of the incumbents has not changed in the past 13 years as they continue to hold 90 per cent of the market and that phone plans remain high compared to the rest of the world. He said if spectrum set-aside in auctions was done away with, the incumbents would buy up all the assets. “When you have market power, you’re willing to pay a lot of money to keep it,” Béland said. “If your objective is to only have three incumbents in all of Canada… all you have to do is convince the government to have open spectrum auctions.” — Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca. and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy.

Natale out, Staffieri back at Rogers, as sparks fly at conference panel

News | 11/16/2021 9:37 pm EST

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