Rogers Communications: MLSE Buy-in Largely In Line; Focus Shifts to Timing of Value Unlock

Research evidence excerpt

Rogers Communications: MLSE Buy-in Largely In Line; Focus Shifts to Timing of Value Unlock

J P M O R G A N North America Equity Research

06 July 2026

Rogers Communications Overweight

RCIb.TO, RCI/B CN

MLSE Buy-in Largely In Line; Focus Shifts to Timing of Price (03 Jul 26):C$45.03

Value Unlock

Telecom Services, Cable & Satellite

On Monday (July 6), Rogers announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Sebastiano C Petti AC

Kilmer Sports Inc.'s remaining 25% stake in MLSE for C$4.35B, lifting its (1-212) 622-8529

ownership to 100%. The deal came somewhat earlier than we anticipated, while the sebastiano.c.petti@jpmorgan.com

C$4.35B headline value sits a touch below our prior C$4.47B estimate. We Shayna Nguyen

continue to expect Rogers to monetize a portion of its sports and media assets in (1-212) 622-0038

1H27 to institutional investors; however, we now trim our assumed sell-down to shayna.nguyen@jpmchase.com

30% (or ~C$6.3B) of the combined assets, from 35% previously, still sufficient to John Stid

de-lever to 3.5x. (1-212) 272-0992

john.stid@jpmorgan.com

• Deal terms. Rogers will finance the buy-in with committed liquidity, and the J.P. Morgan Securities LLC

transaction remains subject to league approvals, with management guiding to

a 4Q26 close. Full ownership completes the consolidation of MLSE alongside

Rogers' wholly owned sports and media assets: the Toronto Blue Jays, Rogers

Centre, and Sportsnet. Rogers also reiterated its intention to "sell a minority

stake in the consolidated Rogers sports, media and entertainment assets over

the course of the next year". Importantly, we do not read this as a delay to the

recapitalization timeline relative to prior guidance of a late-2026/early-2027

transaction, and we continue to expect a monetization event in early 2027.