Air Canada Completes $260M Bought Deal Offering

On October 27, 2009, Air Canada completed a public offering of 160,500,000 units for aggregate gross proceeds to Air Canada of $260,010,000 on a bought deal basis pursuant to a short-form prospectus filed in each of the provinces and territories of Canada, and on a private placement basis in the United States. Each unit comprised one Class B Voting Share or one Class A Variable Voting Share and one half of one share purchase warrant.

The net proceeds from the offering will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes. The offering was underwritten by a syndicate led by Genuity Capital Markets and TD Securities Inc. and including National Bank Financial Inc., GMP Securities L.P., Raymond James Ltd. and Salman Partners Inc.

Air Canada was represented in-house by David Shapiro, vice president and general counsel; Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, assistant general counsel and director of legal services; and David Perez, assistant general counsel, corporate and commercial; and assisted by Stikeman Elliott LLP, with a team that included Robert Carelli, David Massé, Olivier Proulx and Myra Khanna (corporate and securities, in Montréal); William Braithwaite (corporate and securities); Gary Nachshen (pensions, in Toronto); Ron Ferguson (corporate and regulatory) and Marie-Andrée Beaudry and Frank Mathieu (tax). Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP was US counsel to Air Canada, with a team composed of Christopher W. Morgan, Michael Acedo and Julie Breau.

The underwriters were represented by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, with a team that included Richard Cherney, Neil Kravitz, Olivier Désilets and Brian Kujavsky (corporate and securities) and Fred Purkey (tax) in Montréal and Scott Tayne and Darren Novak (US securities) in New York.