The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Union representatives yesterday said they plan “to meet Liberty Global at the airport and see what baggage they’re carrying”, with the company’s acquisition of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s (BTC) majority owner set to close on May 13.

Bernard Evans, the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union’s (BCPOU) president, confirmed to Tribune Business he had “heard talk about” Cable & Wireless Communications’ (CWC) sale being consummated at that date.

Other contacts, speaking on condition of anonymity, also told this newspaper that Liberty Global was set to become BTC’s largest, and controlling shareholder, on May 13.

“All the top BTC executives are very jittery,” one source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Tribune Business. “Morale is very low, and budgets have been cut across the board.”

Liberty Global’s Board has already approved its acquisition of 100 per cent of CWC’s share capital, in a deal that is set to give it instant scale and presence in communications markets across the Caribbean and Latin America.

Tribune Business sources said CWC’s Board was due to meet on May 12 to ratify the agreement, after the which the company will cease to exist after some 150 years. Shareholders of both companies have consented to the deal.

Mr Evans confirmed to this newspaper that BTC staff morale was “getting worse”, with the workforce downsizing exercises since the 2011 privatisation now compounded by further uncertainty stemming from Liberty Global’s unknown plans for the business.

“Staff morale hasn’t changed much ever since the takeover by CWC, because we had all these changes and went through two-three downsizing, and we constantly hear rumours about groups of people leaving and such,” Mr Evans told Tribune Business.

“We’ve always had these concerns about the staff since the sale in 2011. It’s getting worse since news of the sale to Liberty Global.”

Mr Evans said he had addressed speculation of further downsizing with “the people in charge of BTC, including up to Board level, and all of them have confided that there’s no further intention of downsizing”.

Liberty Global’s takeover of CWC and, by extension, the controlling equity interest at BTC, still has to be approved by both the Government and the Utilities Regulation & Competition Authority (URCA) as sector regulator.

URCA will only assess the deal on competition grounds and, given that there has been no change in terms of market player numbers or scope (only owner), those approvals are likely to be forthcoming. The Government, too, is unlikely to want to be held responsible for delaying a region-wide deal.

Mr Evans, meanwhile, said the union had been “doing our homework” on Liberty Global. He added that the BCPOU had been invited to a meeting at the London headquarters of Uniglobal, the umbrella global union representing workers chiefly in the financial and communications industries, on April 19.

Worker representatives from territories where Liberty Global operates, including Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Chile and Puerto Rico, were present.

Mr Evans said the meeting was intended to share information and “form alliances” in relation to Liberty Global, given its impending takeover of BTC.

Expressing hope that Liberty Global’s principal, John Malone, might look favourably on BTC because he owns a private island in the Exumas, Mr Evans added: “We’ve done all we can to find out their modus operandi, how they operate, what their mindset is.

“Our best bet is to figure out, as best we can, how they operate, how they treat their employees; are they pro-union or anti-union, do they recognise worker rights, do they adhere to the UN mandate on declared rights?”

Mr Evans said the BCPOU was compiling such information so it would be able to alert the Government, BTC’s 49 per cent minority shareholder, and “guard against any further deterioration of working conditions at BTC, and ensure we have a standard of living that’s acceptable” under Liberty Global’s ownership.

“We’ll have to meet Liberty Global at the airport and see what baggage they’re bringing,” Mr Evans told Tribune Business.

The BCPOU chief added that BTC was likely to be the subject of frequent mergers and acquisitions going forward, given that it would continue to be owned by an international communications player going forward.

Mr Evans said he had warned the former Ingraham administration that was likely to be one of the consequences of the 2011 privatisation, given the union’s belief that CWC was seeking to acquire BTC “to pretty itself up” for its own suitors.