CRTC Approves Sale Of BCE

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has granted conditional approval of the deal to privatize Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), Canada's largest telecommunications company.

Under the transaction, BCE, which is also Canada's most widely held publicly traded company, would become owned by a small group of investors that includes the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (Teachers') and three American private-equity firms, Providence Equity Partners International VI L.P. and its affiliated investment funds (Providence), Madison Dearborn Capital Partners V L.P. and its affiliated investment funds (Madison) and Merrill Lynch Global Partners, Inc. (Merrill Lynch). The transaction, valued at $51.7 billion, is the largest corporate acquisition in Canadian history and reputedly the largest private equity transaction in the world to date.