Recently minority shareholders rejected a $504.8 million stock proposal that would have seen the cellular phone company folded into the parent Rogers Communications Inc. (RCI), which currently holds 51 percent ownership. Shares of Rogers Wireless plunged 34 percent.

"I was expecting it to go down, but not this much. We're talking about a third of the market value," Carl Bayard, an analyst at Montreal's MGP Media Assess Management, told The Globe and Mail.

As BT Wireless moves ahead in its newfound independence from parent British Telecom, Rogers Wireless fears that should RCI take control it would be sold to the highest bidder. Only 21 percent of Rogers Wireless minority shareholders voted in favor of the RCI offer, whereas approval from two-thirds of the shareholders would have left the parent with about 67 percent of the wireless firm and AT&T Wireless with 33 percent.

According to various reports, Rogers Communications wants be in the position to eventually sell its shares at a premium to U.S. minority partner in AT&T wireless Services Inc, in a move to protect itself from the money-losing wireless unit. However, this is subject to the federal government loosening Canada's foreign ownership rules in the telecommunications sector, which more than likely, will not happen until 2003.