Municipal Pension Fund Invests in Up-and-Coming Wireless Carrier, BMV
The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) has signed an agreement to invest $50 million in BMV Holdings, a new discount cell phone carrier planning to enter the Canadian wireless market in the third quarter of this year.
BMV, which purchased $52 million worth of airwaves licenses in Canada’s most recent wireless spectrum auction, hopes to launch a competitive challenge to the country’s three existing carriers (Rogers, Telus, and Bell). It’s services will eventually be available to as many as 19 million people in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
The company won’t say exactly how much it plans to spend on launching these services, but says it will likely run into the “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Despite the current recession, however, the company is remaining positive about its upcoming debut, noting that it has plenty of cash on hand.
“We’re very confident that we have as much capital as we need to get ourselves through launch,” commented BMV Chief Executive, Alek Krstajic. “I think we’ve been smart in trying to raise a lot of capital early, as opposed to thinking we could rely on any kind of debt financing. So we’re in a very, very comfortable position.”
News z: Jeremy