100 King St W, Suite 6200, 1 First Cdn Pl, PO Box 50, Toronto, ON
Year called to bar: 1998 (ON)
Desmond is one of Canada’s most well-regarded lawyers for capital markets work, with a particular focus on IPOs and other equity financing transactions. He co-leads the Firm’s capital markets practice with Rosalind Hunter. Desmond is responsible for the origination and execution of equity and debt financing transactions and has led numerous initial public offerings, new issues, secondary offerings and private placements for issuers primarily in the diversified, financial services, healthcare, mining, power and utilities, real estate and TMT (technology, media and telecommunications) industries. He has extensive experience as an advisor to investment banks on trading questions and regulatory matters and has also served as the corporate secretary of a TSX-listed issuer. Desmond earned a BSc (Hons.) in geological sciences from Queen’s University in 1993 and an LLB from McGill University in 1996. He was named as a partner of Osler in 2005. According to Chambers, Desmond holds a distinguished reputation among his peers and is “a very talented lawyer who gets to the point quickly”. He is ranked as a leading lawyer for capital markets or securities work by Best Lawyers, Chambers, IFLR1000, The Legal 500, Lexpert, and Who’s Who Legal.
On Dec. 18, 2020, Granite REIT Holdings Limited Partnership completed an offering of $500 million aggregate principal amount of Series 5 senior unsecured debentures due 2030
Granite REIT Holdings Limited Partnership completed an offering of $500 million aggregate principal amount of Series 4 senior unsecured debentures due 2027
Ceridian HCM Holding Inc. (Ceridian), a global human capital management software company, completed its initial public offering of 24,150,000 shares of common stock, which included 3,150,000 shares of common stock issued pursuant to the exercise by the underwriters of their over-allotment option. The offering was priced at US$22.00 per share, resulting in gross proceeds of US$631,300,000 when combined with the concurrent US$100.0 million private placement and before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by Ceridian.
On July 5, 2017, Canada Goose Holdings Inc. completed its secondary offering of 12,500,000 subordinate voting shares for a price of US$20.75 per share for aggregate gross proceeds of US$259,375,000. The shares were sold by an investment fund advised by Bain Capital, DTR LLC, and certain charities and members of management.
On July 3, 2017, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. (SNC-Lavalin) completed its acquisition of WS Atkins plc (Atkins), one of the world’s most respected consultancies in design, engineering and project management, with a leadership position across the infrastructure, transportation and energy sectors, by means of a Court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement under Part 26 of the U.K. Companies Act 2006 (the Acquisition).
On June 21, 2017, Algoma Central Corp. (Algoma) completed its offering of $75 million aggregate principal amount of 5.25-per-cent convertible unsecured subordinated debentures (the Debentures) at a price of $1,000 per debenture on a bought-deal basis to a syndicate of underwriters led by CIBC Capital Markets, and including Scotia Capital Inc., TD Securities Inc., National Bank Financial Inc., GMP Securities L.P., Cormark Securities Inc. and Raymond James Ltd. (collectively, the Underwriters).
On May 30, 2017, Kinder Morgan Canada Limited (KML) completed its initial public offering (the IPO) by issuing 102,942,000 restricted voting shares at a price of $17.00 per share, for total proceeds of approximately $1.75 billion.
ECN Capital Corp. (TSX: ECN) completed its second public financing deal in May 2017, and then subsequently announced the acquisition of Service Finance Co. of Florida.
On March 21, 2017, Canada Goose Holdings Inc. completed its initial public offering of 23 million subordinate voting shares at an initial offering price of $17.00 per share, which included the exercise in full by the underwriters of an over-allotment option to purchase up to 3 million additional subordinate voting shares, for total gross proceeds of $391 million to Canada Goose and the selling shareholders.
On April 1, 2016, Corus Entertainment Inc. acquired the business of Shaw Media Inc. from Shaw Communications Inc. This acquisition more than doubled Corus’ size, creating a combined portfolio of brands that encompass 45 specialty television services, including leading women and lifestyle, kids, family and general entertainment brands; 15 conventional television channels; 39 radio stations; a global content business; book publishing; and a growing portfolio of digital assets.
On November 5, 2015, Hydro One Limited, the largest electricity transmission and distribution company in Ontario, announced the closing of its initial public offering by way of secondary sale pursuant to which the Province of Ontario offered 81,100,000 common shares at $20.50 per share for total gross proceeds to the Province of approximately $1.66 billion. This was the biggest Canadian IPO in the last 15 years.
On September 30, 2015, Element Financial Corporation (TSX: EFN) completed its US$8.6 billion acquisition of GE Capital’s fleet management operations in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico. Element had previously acquired the Canadian operations of GE Capital’s North American fleet management business in June of 2013. With the completion of the acquisition, Element’s total assets increased to approximately C$22 billion.
On June 4, 2015, First Quantum Minerals Ltd. completed its sale of 76,923,000 common shares of First Quantum at a price of $16.25 per common share to raise gross proceeds of $1.25 billion. The underwriters exercised their over-allotment option in full, bringing the aggregate gross proceeds to First Quantum of $1.44 billion.
On April 10, 2015, Cara Operations Ltd., Canada’s largest full service restaurant company, completed its $200 million initial public offering. Cara sold 8.7 million subordinate voting shares for $23 each and now trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol CAO.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (Valeant) acquired Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (Salix) for US$173.00 per share in cash, or a total enterprise value of approximately US$15.8 billion. The transaction closed on April 1, 2015. To partially finance the acquisition, Valeant completed equity and bond offerings, which closed on March 27, 2015. In its equity offer, Valeant issued 7,286,482 shares at a price of US$199.00 per share, for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately US$1.45 billion.
A wholly owned subsidiary of Amaya Gaming Group Inc. completed its acquisition of 100 per cent of the issued and outstanding shares of privately held Oldford Group Limited, the parent company of Isle of Man-headquartered Rational Group Ltd., the owner and operator of the PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker brands, in an all-cash transaction for an aggregate purchase price of US$4.9 billion, including certain deferred payments and subject to customary purchase price adjustments.
EPCOR completed its sale of 9,775,000 common shares of Capital Power at an offering price of $23.55 per common share for aggregate gross proceeds to EPCOR of $230,201,250.
EPCOR completed its sale of 9,200,000 common shares of Capital Power at an offering price of $24.40 per common share for aggregate gross proceeds to EPCOR of $224,480,000.
