Shaw Communications delayed the launch of its much-anticipated wireless business by about three months on Thursday, pushing the start of the service into 2012.
“This is a major strategic capital investment and we want to get it right by being measured and prudent,” new chief executive Brad Shaw told the company’s annual meeting.
Shaw said the competition with Canada’s wireless players will be “fierce.”
The company will invest between $150 million and $200 million in 2011 on the initiative with a plan to launch in its first major market early in 2012.
The delay came as the Calgary-based company increased its dividend and reported a quarterly profit of $20.3 million, weighed down by costs related to its purchase of the broadcasting assets of Canwest Global Communications.
The company, which offers cable, satellite, internet and phone services, said the profit amounted to four cents per share for the quarter ended Nov. 30 compared with earnings of $114.2 million or 26 cents per share a year ago.
The most recent quarter included a charge of $139 million related to new programming, digital transmission towers and other requirements of the CRTC decision approving Shaw’s acquisition of the Canwest assets.
Shaw also recorded $58 million in acquisition, integration and restructuring costs in the quarter.
Revenue in what was the company’s first quarter of fiscal 2011 totalled $1.08 billion, up from $905.9 million.
The delay of the wireless launch followed the departure of Laurence Cooke, who was hired to run the new division. Cooke was vice-president of wireless and previously held a senior position at BCE Inc.’s Bell Mobility.
Shaw spent nearly $200 million for wireless spectrum in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba that it bought in a federal auction in 2008 designed to open up Canada’s wireless industry to more competition.
Shaw has been battling rival Telus’s foray into its core TV business. The Vancouver-based phone company offers land-line and satellite TV services to a customer base that largely overlaps Shaw’s.
Brad Shaw was initially supposed to take the reins from his bombastic older brother Jim at the firm’s annual general meeting on Thursday, but the handover ended up taking place suddenly in November.
Jim Shaw was criticized for displaying unusual behaviour at an investor luncheon last fall. Some people who were at the Vancouver event said he appeared to be inebriated.
Both Jim Shaw and his father, JR Shaw, the company’s chairman, were teary eyed at the annual meeting Thursday after a tribute video, which featured interviews with Shaw directors, former Tory environment minister Jim Prentice, CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein and others.
“Well, Jim, we’ve had good times and bad times together. I’m sure we’ll meet again… And I’m equally sure if we meet again we’ll cross horns again,” von Finckenstein said in the video.
Shaw Communications has called on the CRTC to regulate certain aspects of the internet to protect Canadian broadcasting.
The Calgary-based company recently told a Commons heritage committee that online movie providers Netflix, Hulu and video site Google TV are undermining Canadian broadcasters’ ability to pay for domestic content.
