Ventas acquires 29 Canadian senior living communities from Holiday Retirement

Ventas, Inc. completed an all-cash acquisition of 29 Canadian senior living communities from Holiday Retirement, which is owned primarily by funds advised by Fortress Investment Group LLC, in the largest real estate transaction in Canada to date in 2014. These private pay properties are located in seven Canadian provinces, with the majority in Ontario and Alberta. At the close, Atria Senior Living, Inc. assumed management of the communities on behalf of Ventas.

Rick Riney, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel, Joe Lambert, Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel, and Kevin Bohl, Asset Management Counsel, led the Ventas legal team. Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP represented Ventas on the transaction with a team that included Victoria Graham, Chris Murray, Alex Gorka and Lauren Hulme (M&A); Heather McKean, Sandy Yeung, Ryan Nielsen and Julianne Gu (real estate); Michelle Lally and Jordan Giurlanda (Investment Canada); Jeff Murray (health); Rhonda Shirreff (employment) and Kim Wharram and David Davachi (tax).

Christopher Falkowski, Vice President, Private Equity, and Brittain Rogers, Vice President, Legal, led the transaction on behalf of Fortress. Scott Shanaberger, Chief Financial Officer, and Christopher Bouchard, Chief Legal Officer, led the transaction on behalf of Holiday. Fortress and Holiday were represented in Canada by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP on the transaction with a team that included Scott Hyman (finance); Mindy Gilbert, William Buchner, Anthony Spadaro and Carla Nawrocki (M&A); Gabriella Lombardi and Ioana Hancas (real estate); Mark Katz (competition); John Ulmer and Raj Juneja (tax) and Jessica Bullock (employment). Fortress and Holiday were represented in the United States by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP with a team that included Nancy Olson and Matea Bozja (real estate).

Atria was assisted by McCarthy Tétrault LLP's Graham Gow, Matt Cumming, Heidi Gordon, Jennifer Organ and Omar Soliman (corporate); James Morand, Brian Pel, and Wendy Brousseau (tax); Trevor Lawson, Rachel Solyom and Ben Aberant (employment); Naseem Malik (immigration); Shanon Grauer (regulatory); Oliver Borgers (competition); Abraham Costin and Isabel Henkelman (real estate); Ian Bies (trademark) and Heather Meredith (bankruptcy & restructuring).