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Mergers & Acquisitions/Private Equity

  • Overview
  • Who To Contact
  • Who We Help
  • International Perspective
  • Representative Matters
  • Recent Developments

The Aird & Berlis Mergers & Acquisitions/Private Equity Group applies its Canadian expertise and global experience to every M&A/Private Equity transaction in which our firm is engaged. The knowledge of our legal professionals of what is occurring throughout the world provides a value added dimension to our services for both our domestic and international clients. We deliver a timely, responsive and efficient Canadian legal service that is tailored to the needs of each individual client based on its needs and objectives.

The M&A/PE Group uses an integrated approach to deliver exceptional service to our clients. More than 40 Aird & Berlis lawyers in at least 12 areas of Canadian law are active members of the M&A/PE Group. Within the firm, our experience extends considerably further than just acquisition work. We have highly regarded expert lawyers in all areas that are key to private equity, including tax structuring, mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, funds, financing, financial services regulation and pensions as well as real estate, leasing and environmental concerns. We cover all types of private equity transactions: buy-outs, public-to-privates, portfolio management, recapitalisations and exits by sale to trade/financial buyers or by IPO. We have a strong acquisition and acquisition finance team, who have experience with many types of transactions, including ‘lock box’ purchase agreements as well as representation and warranty insurance.

As private equity transactions become increasingly cross–border, our independent status and domestic and multinational legal relationships ensure that we can recommend access to the most appropriate lawyers at firms with whom we have had experience.

Further, Aird & Berlis, being an independent Toronto-based law firm, is the gateway to Canada for our international clients. We act for international entities doing business in Canada and Canadian entities doing business abroad. We use our extensive network of Canadian law firms to provide comprehensive Canada-wide legal advice to all M&A and Private Equity participants.

Our M&A/PE Group is involved with numerous types of public and private mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions, including:

  • traditional stock and asset purchases, including auctions or privately-negotiated transactions
  • share exchanges
  • mergers, amalgamations and plans of arrangement
  • going private transactions
  • reorganizations, restructurings and workouts
  • takeovers (friendly and hostile) and activism matters
  • reverse takeovers
  • leveraged buyouts (LBOs) and management buyouts (MBOs)
  • fund formation and financing and regulatory compliance
  • real estate funds and flow through vehicles 

Contacts

Group Members

Who We Help

Our commitment to all our clients is to provide sophisticated Canadian legal advice. We are also committed to learning all we can about our clients’ business objectives and to sustaining the client team so that our legal advice can be pragmatic and specifically tailored for that client.

We act for all participants in M&A and Private Equity transactions, including publicly-listed and privately-held buyers and sellers, investment bankers, special committees of boards of directors, management-led buyout groups, private equity funds, hedge funds, activist stakeholders, merchant banks, corporate lenders, arbitrageurs and institutional and other investors.

International Perspective

Aird & Berlis regularly acts alongside leading U.S. and international law firms as Canadian counsel, and has developed a particular expertise in cross-border transactions, often using tax-effective structures. We also act for non-Canadian participants in all aspects of Canadian M&A and/or Private Equity transactions, including publicly-listed and privately-held buyers and sellers, investment bankers, special committees of boards of directors, management-led buyout groups, private equity funds, hedge funds, activist stakeholders, merchant banks, corporate lenders, arbitrageurs and institutional and other investors.

Part of our commitment to professionalism and excellence includes our close relationship with leading M&A and/or private equity practitioners worldwide and with various regulatory bodies in Canada. Members of our firm are active with the relevant committees of the International Bar Association and attend and speak at IBA meetings and conferences. Members of the M&A/PE Group are also longstanding contributors to a number of studies published by the American Bar Association.  As well, the M&A/PE Group has partners who are members of committees advising the Canadian regulators on proposed law, regulation and policy. Further we regularly attend the annual invitation-only securities practitioners’ conference with leading Canadian regulators and practitioners to participate in off-the-record discussions regarding future law, policy and regulation. Another methodology to keep current on law and M&A practice around the globe is the writing of bulletins of new applicable law and policy as well as the rankings earned by members of the M&A/PE Group.

Aird & Berlis has been providing Canadian legal services for a lengthy period of time in connection with transactions in many varied industries which have involved mergers and acquisition firms and/or private equity firms in Canada and worldwide. We have advised on private equity investments, strategic investments and exits from those investments through mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions, friendly, unfriendly and unsolicited. Our history has provided us with expertise, experience and knowledge of the expectations and desires of merger and acquisition participants and private equity participants in the Canadian transactional market. Our participation in the private equity market area has been expanding exponentially as the size of private equity entities has also been expanding.

Representative Matters

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Recent Developments

Related Areas of Expertise

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