Telus joins suitors wooing BCE

Canadian Press is reporting that Telus (T-T) has joined the list of companies courting BCE.

According to the report:
"BCE said late Wednesday that it and Telus have entered into discussions to “explore the possibility of a business combination.” The two companies have entered into a mutual non-disclosure and standstill agreement on a non-exclusive basis, BCE said in a release."

Hmm, could yesterday's activity be explained by this news?

The action yesterday grabbed my attention as I was following Telus for the last little while looking for an entry point. I was offline most of the day so I was caught off-guard by the $2.95 difference in the June 19th's low and high for the day. Although volume hit 1,522,760 shares yesterday, it wasn't way out of whack as there were several days in the last month that hit over a million shares traded but an almost $3 move on a blue-chip stock told me something must be up.

The question now is how will the market receive this news? After all, Telus was rumoured to be the next possible private equity takeover target but there were other people saying it would try taking over BCE... tomorrow should be an interesting day. And let's not forget how Rogers will be affected by this news with two of its major wireless competitors possibly concentrating their efforts on a merger instead of their main businesses.