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gpitts@globeandmail.com

It has been seven years since Jean Monty resigned as CEO of BCE Inc., and his legacy remains a subject of intense public debate. In recent weeks, his name has surfaced once more, as his successor at BCE, Michael Sabia, became the controversial choice to head the massive pension fund, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. According to some comments in the media, one of Mr. Sabia's achievements was to fix a badly broken company that Mr. Monty left behind. In this interview, which developed from a letter written by him to The Globe and Mail, Mr. Monty looks back on 30 years in the Bell Canada group of companies, and seeks to clarify the record.

Why are you speaking out now?

Seven years after leaving BCE, I find it surprising and unsettling that negative comments on my stewardship of the company continue to circulate, unchecked and unchallenged. The time has come for me to give an assessment of my record based on some simple, objective yardsticks.

Why this concern? Couldn't you just take the money and run?

The clincher for me was this: A friend said that, in the Internet age, the information about you and what you've done - as well as what people thought about what you have done - is going to reside in servers around the world for decades, if not forever.

If you want to give your own point of view, for your kids, grandkids, business partners or whatever, you might as well do it. No one else will do it for you.

Aren't your critics justified in criticizing this record?

As with most things in life, it was not all perfect. In 2000, as we were coming to the end of the market euphoria about technology stocks, I recommended to the board of BCE the acquisition of the 77 per cent of Teleglobe that BCE did not own.

I was convinced that Teleglobe, a Canadian-based supplier of international telecom services, could be a source of growth for BCE. It did not turn out to be. After several unsuccessful attempts at turning the situation around, given the size of the losses associated with this decision, I submitted my resignation from the company in April, 2002. At the same time, I recommended that BCE discontinue its financial support to Teleglobe.

Let's be clear. I take responsibility for a poor decision on Teleglobe. But I also take responsibility for what we did well and for my overall performance.

What then were your major accomplishments?

When I left Bell in the spring of 2002, our customer and employee satisfaction scores were at high levels; we were the No. 1 brand in Internet services and in wireless. The return to our shareholders far exceeded the relevant index.

I had come back to BCE in October, 1997, and left at the end of April, 2002. Over that 4½-year period the total compounded annual return to shareholders was 23 per cent, compared to 3½ per cent for the TSX index during the same period.

What about another key part of your career, as CEO of Nortel Networks from March, 1993 to October, 1997?

During my tenure, Nortel generated billions of dollars of shareholder value. During those 4½ years Nortel shareholders enjoyed a 24-per-cent compound rate of return, compared with 18 per cent for the TSX.

In a context where governments were rapidly opening up the telecommunications markets to newcomers while constraining the ability of Bell to respond, Bell Canada became a small-growth, high-dividend component of BCE. Nortel was BCE's earnings growth engine.

But in time Nortel became too large and too dominant to remain controlled by BCE. It became obvious to me, as BCE's CEO in 2000, that the company had to spin off its Nortel holdings to its shareholders.

That turned to be a very wise move. The Nortel spinoff produced a special dividend to shareholders in the billions and, in addition, BCE generated a $4-billion after-tax cash gain from its hedging of the portion of the shares it had held back from the distribution to shareholders.

Didn't it take away a big part of BCE's future growth?

It had to find new growth engines in very short order without leveraging the corporation unduly. BCE invested billions in better platforms for growth, such as high-speed Internet capacity, wireless spectrum and networks, satellite TV and customer service platforms and operating systems. Rationalization plans were put in place to bring costs down.

We adopted a multimedia convergence strategy through Bell Globemedia [now CTVglobemedia], extending the concept of bundling connectivity platforms under the same corporate brand. Rogers and Quebecor Media are continuing to pursue developments with a similar concept in mind.

We created Emergis to enhance the value we could bring to small and medium-sized enterprises and provide revenue and profit growth. And a division was created to position certain investments, such as Bell Canada International, CGI and Telesat, for disposal at the appropriate time. Why do you think your record is constantly attacked by others?

I was trying to do something which at that time had not been done and people were not convinced it was the right thing to do. Most people would have agreed with the spinoff of Nortel but few understood that we had to rev up BCE's growth engines. A lot of people were very insecure or unsure of the media aspect.Does this reflect the fate of today's CEOs - heroes one moment, goats the next?

There is no question that I've been a hero two or three times in my career, and I've been a goat two or three times. That's par for the course. The only thing I am trying to make sure is that people remember the good things, as well as the bad things - and the net record is good.

Jean Monty

Title: Corporate director; boards include Bombardier Inc. and Alcatel-Lucent, Montreal

Born: June 26, 1947, in Montreal

Education: Bachelor of arts, Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal. Master of arts in economics, University of Western Ontario. Master of business administration, University of Chicago.

Career highlights:

1974: Began career at Bell Canada, where he held a number of management jobs.

October, 1992: Moved to Nortel Networks as president and chief operating officer.

March, 1993: Appointed president and CEO.

October, 1997: Became president and COO of BCE, the holding company for Bell Canada and other assets.

April 24, 2002: Resigned as chairman and CEO of BCE.