The Globe and Mail

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and its U.S. backers Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners LLC have won the hand of the country's biggest telephone company, agreeing to purchase BCE Inc. for $35-billion.

The group has secured itself a place in corporate history books since the deal is the largest takeover ever in Canada, not to mention one of the world's largest leveraged buyouts. It will see one of the country's most widely held blue chips vanish from the stock market in coming months as the new owners take it private.

After sweetening its deal to win over the BCE board of directors yesterday, Teachers will pay $42.75 a share, BCE said on Saturday in a statement. Teachers is also taking on $16.9-billion worth of debt, preferred equity and minority interests.

BCE's board chose the Teachers bid over offers from two other private equity consortiums: The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, backed by U.S. partner Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., and U.S. buyout firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, supported by Canadian backers including tycoon Richard Li, broadcaster CanWest Global Communications Corp., and Hospitals of Ontario Pension Plan.

More to come...