Stock of the Week: Rogers

The outage was terrible for consumers, but for the company – not so much. In fact, it might be a buying opportunity.

Andrew Willis 17 July, 2022 | 11:28PM
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Andrew Willis: After an outage at Rogers (RCI.B) hit both landlines and wireless services last week, leaving millions without phone and internet services, we think the greatest fallout might be the frustration of consumers – rather than lasting trouble for Rogers.

Equity analyst Matthew Dolgin says he doesn’t think the outage will have a material long-term impact on valuation, and the only way it impacts the fate of the Rogers/Shaw merger is if there is retaliatory blowback or acquiescence from regulators to public outrage. And the merging of wireline internet doesn’t necessarily increase the risk of a future outage.

When it comes to compensation for the outage and potentially further regulations, we don’t think it’ll be material enough to change our long-term valuation forecast for Rogers. The threat of increased government intervention is ever-present already, and sure we need more competition, but any changes to the status quo will require a smaller competitor to take subscribers from one of the Big 3. And the Big 3 aren’t letting go of any customers easily. Notice how during the Rogers outage, the carriers came together to find a solution? With oligopoly comes responsibility, especially when you want to keep that 90% share of the market. Practically speaking, we don’t believe smaller competitors could hope to offer superior service.

When looking back at the Rogers outage of 2022, put it in the context of the Big 3 which we believe all have solid moats that protect them from any current or future competition. Cooperation might even be mandated to prevent future outages – which is at least one win for consumers.

For Morningstar, I’m Andrew Willis.

 

Editor's Note: All images are courtesy of Unsplash.com and AP Images. 

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Securities Mentioned in Article

Security NamePriceChange (%)Morningstar Rating
BCE Inc37.94 CAD0.26Rating
Quebecor Inc Shs -B- Subord.Voting33.33 CAD1.06Rating
Rogers Communications Inc Shs -B- Non-Voting35.15 USD-2.66Rating
TELUS Corp22.25 CAD0.59Rating
TELUS Corp15.71 USD-0.32Rating

About Author

Andrew Willis

Andrew Willis  is Senior Editor at Morningstar Canada. He previously produced content for Fidelity Investments and finance industry events for Euromoney Institutional Investor and has written in the past for Thomson Reuters and CNN. Follow him on Twitter @Andrew_M_Willis.

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