The Conservative majority may give telecommunications bankers a lot of work, as the government's plans to open up telecom ownership can move ahead and clear the way for some big deals such as a sale of MTS Allstream.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper, who won a strong majority government in Monday's election, has been open about his desire to lower the barriers to foreign investment in Canada's telecom sector. What he hasn't said is just what that will mean.
The betting is that the Tories have been favouring allowing foreigners to own 100 per cent of new market entrants or existing players who have a market share of 10 per cent or less. However, that was back when it wasn't clear that the Tories would manage more than another minority government.
Now, with such a strong mandate, there is a chance Mr. Harper could go further.
Even if he goes slowly, the market share test would open up some big transactions. MTS Allstream could be broken up and sold in such a scenario, and BCE Inc. could also conceivably sell its BellAliant business in Atlantic Canada to a foreign player.
In the cell space, a big winner could be Globalive Wireless Management Co., a new entrant that is fighting a court battle to keep its operations in Canada going. Globalive, which operates under the Wind Mobile brand, is fighting in court to be allowed to continue its service. The federal Conservatives used Cabinet powers to grant the company a license, but that's faced court challenges from competitors.
With a majority, the door is open to changing the ownership laws to clear the situation up.
That would allow Globalive to get back to raising money in the high-yield bond market. It has put plans to raise about $1-billion on hold while it awaits the outcome of the challenges to its ownership situations.
New rules could also open up the smaller Canadian challengers in the cell phone market to acquisition or investment by stronger foreign companies, further ramping up competition, not to mention fees for bankers.