VANCOUVER, British Columbia-Telus Corp. said it would not extend its $800 million offers to acquire rival Microcell Telecommunications Inc. beyond the current Oct. 12 extension date following Microcell’s announcement last month that it has accepted a $1.3 billion offer from Rogers Wireless Communications Inc.
Telus, which operates CDMA and iDEN networks in Canada, said it would not take up or pay for any shares or warrants of GSM-based operator Microcell that remain deposited to its offers, and it has cancelled a commitment from the Royal Bank of Canada to provide a $400 million credit facility for general corporate purposes following the completion of the offers. Telus noted that as of Sept. 20 it had received 837 class A restricted voting shares, 172,311 class B non-voting shares, 91,166 warrants 2005 and 91,398 warrants 2008 from Microcell shareholders.
Telus initiated its unsolicited offers to acquire Microcell in May and had announced several extensions, but was continually rebuffed by Microcell’s management.<
