Will Telus become the " Brookfield " of telecoms ?While the Shaw / Rogers mergers enters its endgame , Telus has been busy . Most of its 5G capital upgrade is completed and it is getting ready to harvest some interesting returns. While like its competitors it will gain Cell subscriptions with a growing population ( it is likely the first thing a new immigrant gets on arrival to the country ) Telus has a lot more going on.
Like its subsidiary , Telus international that it spun out to the market , it also has in its stable Telus Medical and Telus agriculture as possilble spin offs, But is is not sleeping , They also have Telus Security and even Telus vetrinarian help. The security, medical and medical monitoring capabilities will be increasingly part of a an aging populations monthly subscriptions all growing on the back of an installed 5G network and traditional loyalty earned by cell phone and internet subscriptions.
So , like Brookfield they will have new streams of recurrent income from their infrastructure. They also have lots of green and ESG credibility to encourage institutional investment .
But. In looking around I find they also have one more Brookfield like play in thier playbook , Real Estate . If you visit most towns and cities in traditional Telus territory you wll find that they own a lot of property in almost downtown locations. These places once held customer service offices and Telphone operators and big switch gear. Technology has radically downsized those requirements and Telus now has a Real Estate division developing some exciting new properties ranging from industrial to housing. They will ultimately devlop significant value from these previoulsy underused but well located assets. Of course , all these will come wired for Telus.
I wintnessed a number of Telus service vans all at work in local communities, They are all decorated with Telus Product advertising . I do not see anything similar from shaw, rogers or bell. Perhaps they are concerned with takeovers and entertainment assets. It would appear that Telus is quite apart in working on a different vision and one with increasing regular revenue streams. This should ensure regular rising dividends in the years ahead .