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A Telus store is seen on Bloor Street West in Toronto, Wednesday, August 15, 2013.Galit Rodan/The Canadian Press

Telus Corp. is focused on making Public Mobile "profitable" as a discount carrier, but continues to harbour ambitions of buying Mobilicity.

Chief financial officer John Gossling made those remarks at an investor conference on Friday, noting Telus remains interested in securing more customers as well as spectrum assets. Spectrum refers to the invisible radio waves that carriers use to provide cellphone service.

Telus received regulatory approval late last year to acquire Public Mobile for an undisclosed amount. Although the federal government gave its blessing for that deal, it has twice rejected Telus's attempts to purchase Mobilicity.

Mobilicity, which is currently evaluating bids as part of a court-supervised sales process, has been under court protection from its creditors since the fall. As that process drags on, Telus is assessing how to revamp Public Mobile.

"The integration acitivies are going on now," Mr. Gossling told delegates at the CIBC Institutional Investor Conference in Whistler, B.C.

"That brand continues to exist and certainly we've taken their employees on board and their distribution. But we do need to look make it much more profitable, or profitable period, compared to what it was. So that's the focus right now." That includes determining how Public Mobile "fits" with Telus's other "prepaid" wireless services such as those offered by its Koodo brand.

For its part, Public Mobile had 280,000 customers when its deal with Telus was first announced last October. The small Toronto-based carrier offers mobile service in Ontario and Quebec.

As for Mobilicity, its lawyers will try to convince an Ontario court to force the sale of its wireless licences to Telus, despite Ottawa's objections, if its sales process fails to produce other credible offers.

Telus has twice proposed to acquire Mobilicity for $380-million, but Ottawa has flatly rejected its efforts, citing a federal ban on large carriers acquiring spectrum held by smaller rivals.

Even so, the prohibition on incumbents acquiring Mobilicity is set to expire next month. (Public Mobile was excluded from that ban because the type of spectrum it owns is considered less valuable.)

"There's probably not a lot to say on Mobilicity," Mr. Gossling said. "They're in their CCAA [Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act] process right now and really that's being driven by the courts. So, there's really no up date on that other than, yes, we would continue to be interested. But it looks like it will be a little complicated."

He later continued: "In both cases, Mobilicity and Public, I think they both got to a financial situation where they were looking to be acquired. And they actually both approached us."

Telus, meanwhile, is seeking a judicial review of Ottawa's spectrum transfer rules, which it argues indefinitely extended what was supposed to be a five-year ban on major carriers acquiring new-entrant spectrum.

"The landscape is changing," Mobilicity's chief restructuring officer Bill Aziz, said following a court appearance earlier this week. He was refering, in part, to the pending expiration of the moratorium preventing the startup from being sold to established carriers.

Mobilicity, he added, continues to discuss possible transactions, while conducting a "constructive dialogue" with Ottawa over its contingency plan.

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Tickers mentioned in this story

Study and track financial data on any traded entity: click to open the full quote page. Data updated as of 28/03/24 4:00pm EDT.

SymbolName% changeLast
CM-N
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
+1.3%50.72
CM-T
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
+1.13%68.67
T-T
Telus Corp
+0.37%21.67
TU-N
Telus Corp
+0.63%16.01

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