The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that BCE is continuing its years-long acquisition spree with a $3.1-billion deal to acquire Manitoba Telecom Services. The Globe's Christine Dobby writes that BCE has led the industry in recent quarters in increasing the average revenue it collects from users, following a strategy of a higher-cost offering tied to marketing of its network quality. Now, the company hopes to extend those advantages to the Manitoba market by buying into MTS's stable base of subscribers. "It's about management of the base. And so we think gaining access to a base as excellent as the Manitoba base ... we think that's an opportunity for us as well," BCE chief executive officer George Cope said on a call with investors Monday. "It's all about dividend growth for that stock," said Macquarie's Greg MacDonald, noting that BCE wants to continue to increase its dividend by 5 per cent for another year and maintain its premium valuation in the telecom sector. "But the criticism has been that less and less of the growth is coming from organic growth and more and more from what people would traditionally call financial engineering." BCE closed Monday at $58.64, down 20 cents.