CP Ships Completes Concurrent Share and Note Offering

On July 3, 2002, CP Ships Limited, one of the world’s leading container shipping companies, completed concurrent $127.5 million of common shares in the U.S. and Canada and US$200 million aggregate principal amount of 10-3/8 per cent senior notes due 2012 in the U.S., Canada and Europe. On July 9, 2002, the underwriters exercised their over-allotment option and purchased approximately $17.2 million of additional common shares.

The proceeds of the offerings are intended to be used by CP Ships to facilitate the purchase of additional container ships and to pay for CP Ships’s recently announced acquisition of Italia di Navigazione (an Italian company, which operates a fleet of 11 ships and a fleet of leased containers), with any remaining proceeds to be used to reduce CP Ships’s borrowings under its revolving credit facility.

CP Ships’s general counsel, John Irving, was assisted by McCarthy Tétrault LLP, with a team led by Glen Ireland and including Graham Gow, David Woollcombe, Stu Miller, Karl Tabbakh, Evgenia Ivanova, Wendi Locke, Suzanne Murphy, Richie Clark and James Channo (corporate/securities) and Steven Baum and Nigel Johnston (tax) in London and Toronto. Jon Gregg, Tom Thesing, Mark Walsh and Mike Lesak (corporate/securities) and Robert Wootton and Amy Wenz (tax) of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP in London and Chicago acted as U.S. counsel to CP Ships.

The underwriters, Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc., Salomon Smith Barney Inc. and RBC Dain Rauscher Inc. were represented by Richard Vilsoet, Ward McKimm and Dimitri Hindera of Shearman & Sterling in London, and Shawna Miller, Louis Morisset, Rob Nicholls and Erin Needra (corporate/securities) and Tom Vowinckel (tax) of Stikeman Elliott in London and Toronto, acting as Canadian counsel.