Telus Wants to Shrink Itself and Bet Big on Data Centres

Victor Dodig told investors Telus will look smaller and less sprawling, with the core bet shifting to telecom and digital infrastructure he bluntly calls data centres.

Speaking at a Bank of Montreal conference, the CEO who took over in July said the company is “not interested” in acquisitions and wants organic growth so “2027 doesn’t look anything like 2026,” The Globe and Mail reported. Outside advisers are helping chart a business “much more focused on Canadian telecom and digital infrastructure.”

That means peeling back Entwistle-era side bets. Dodig said great companies inside the carrier “shouldn’t be within our world,” and that health-unit talks are in later stages to sell one of three components, with confidence that two and maybe three pieces move to other owners over time. He already cut the dividend hard on his first earnings day and wrote down digital-unit goodwill while putting Navin Arora over the platform businesses earmarked for sale.

On the growth side, Dodig is doubling down on AI data centres even as he streamlines the phone and internet business toward profitable loads, not volume at any price. He also flagged more than a million homes where the company could build its own fibre instead of riding rival networks. It has already opened its Rimouski sovereign AI factory and lined up more B.C. capacity with Ottawa. Unlike Bell’s shell-first approach, the carrier under Darren Entwistle also bought Nvidia compute. Dodig defended that spend on sovereign demand but said a Bell-style real estate play remains an option.

More financial and data centre detail is promised on the November 6 earnings call. For shareholders used to a sprawling conglomerate, the new message is fit first, then grow what is left.