Crown Corp. continues talks for a partial sale

SaskTel “will always exist,” according to the minister responsible for the Crown corporation, even while there are ongoing talks about potential partnerships with other firms looking to take a stake in the company.

Dustin Duncan told reporters Tuesday that there have been highlevel discussions about a potential partial sale of the publicly owned telecom.

“I would say that there has been discussions around a potential partnership that the government, certainly, and I feel warrants some further investigation and some further discussion,” Duncan said.

His comments came after the release of SaskTel’s 2016-17 annual report, which showed revenue was up and operating expenses were down for the company. There was a year-over-year rise in net income of nearly $30 million, with overall operating revenues coming in at $1.277 billion.

A dividend of $30 million was given to the Crown Investment Corp. Duncan said the company had another very successful year and is “very well positioned in the marketplace” going forward.

Where exactly the company is going from here, regarding partial sales or partnerships, remains unclear. Not long after the 2016 provincial election, the Sask. Party government opened the door for a sale of the company by publicly musing about entertaining offers to buy it.

Premier Brad Wall retreated from that door at the end of 2016, citing heavy public pushback to the idea. But the door never shut entirely: The government passed Bill 40 to allow up to 49 per cent of Crown corporations — including SaskTel — to be sold.

Duncan said SaskTel is looking closer at partnering with other telecommunications companies outside the realm of Bill 40 and that he did not want to leave the impression something is going to happen. He said SaskTel and the province could decide not to pursue anything, but that it is too early to tell. SaskTel has done some due diligence work on tax implications of a potential sale.

“My understanding is that at a pretty high level there has been some work done to identify different corporate structures and what the tax implications would be of pursuing different corporate structures,” said Duncan, adding discussions are “not far enough along on what a potential partnership could look like” to arrive at any conclusions as to whether Saskatchewan residents would be on the hook for higher taxes as a result of selling off part of the Crown.