The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that the last time Globalive chairman Anthony Lacavera set out to try to disrupt an industry he characterizes as an oligopoly, the foreign capital that he had secured became a source of regulatory headaches.
The Globe's Alexandra Posadzki writes that Wind Mobile, the wireless carrier he founded in 2008 with the help of Egypt's Naguib Sawiris, wound up in a protracted legal battle over whether it met Canadian ownership rules. It all ended badly for Mr. Lacavera. So when he set out in search of investors to help finance Globalive's acquisition of Wealth One Bank of Canada, a Schedule I bank subject to a federal government divestiture order, he wanted to avoid repeating that experience.
"I've been extremely focused on making sure all of the investors are not controversial in any way, shape or form -- and that all the investors are not managing money for other people," Mr. Lacavera said. "There's no private-equity firm that is saying in five years or seven years we need to liquidate this or monetize this." In addition to himself, Mr. Lacavera has assembled a consortium of Canadian businesses and entrepreneurs that collectively hold a 65-per-cent stake in the bank.
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