Rogers Shares Down 3% as Major Outage Raises Concerns About $15.4Bln Merger Deal With Shaw

OTTAWA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th July, 2022) The shares of telecommunications giant Rogers Communications fell 3% in the US market and 2% in Canada's market after a massive nationwide outage last Friday and concerns raised by analysts over the expected merger deal with another telecommunications giant - Shaw.

"The incident is likely to introduce incremental regulatory risk to the Shaw transaction," BMO analyst Tim Casey said as quoted by Reuters.

On Friday, Rogers informed the public of a massive outage that affected the entire Canadian network amid reports by police, banks and businesses that their systems went offline.

Earlier this year, the Competition Bureau blocked Rogers Communions from purchasing and merging with Shaw in a C$20 billion (US15.4 billion) deal, saying it would increase already high prices for customers as it leaves no place for competition.

Canadians also raised concerns about the monopoly - and poor service - of the giant telecommunication companies Rogers, Shaw, TELUS and Bell, as this is the second time in less than 15 months the country experiences nationwide outages.