The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition BCE's record of prudent and accretive acquisitions in recent years makes it an ideal candidate to buy Manitoba Telecom Services, TD Securities said in a new report. The Post's Jonathan Ratner, writing in Trading Desk, said analyst Vince Valentini upgraded BCE to buy from hold and raised his price target to $59 from $57 in anticipation of a deal some time next year. "As MTS completes its sale of Allstream over the next few months, we believe that the stage will be set for a sale of the remaining Manitoba operations to one of the larger telcos in Canada by mid-2016," Mr. Valentini told clients. "Once Allstream is out of the picture, we believe that the remaining Manitoba operations at MTS would be a seamless and synergistic fit for BCE." He thinks Telus could also be interested. He also believes regulatory concerns related to a BCE-MTS tie-up have been blown out of proportion, and is confident a deal would be approved with no major concessions. He noted that buying MTS with Allstream would mean BCE was acquiring its primary business telco competitor in both Ontario and Quebec. Manitoba represents a new territory for BCE; it has no wireline presence there.