Astral Media Acquires Standard Radio's Assets

On October 29, 2007, Astral Media Inc. completed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Standard Radio Inc. consisting of 53 radio stations in 30 markets across Canada, as well as two television stations located in northern British Columbia. Also included in the transaction are the assets of Integrated Media Sales or “IMS”, a national advertising sales organization, and of Sound Source Networks, a radio content service provider. The purchase price for these assets was approximately 1.08 billion, of which an amount of approximately $879.9 million was paid in cash and the balance via the issuance of 4,750,987 Class A non-voting shares of the Company. The cash portion of the consideration was financed with cash balances on hand and through committed bank credit facilities.

Astral's legal team was led in-house by Brigitte Catellier, vice-president, legal affairs and secretary, Sylvie Bélanger, senior paralegal, legal affairs, Sophie Émond, vice-president, regulatory and government affairs and Nathalie Dorval, senior advisor, regulatory affairs and intellectual property of Astral Media Inc., and Claude Laflamme, vice-president, corporate and regulatory affairs of Astral Media Radio Inc. who were assisted by Stikeman Elliott LLP with a team that included Sidney Horn, Franziska Ruf, Sophie Lamonde and Resham Ramchandani (corporate), Robert Hogan and Frank Mathieu (tax), Howard Rosenoff (financing), Valérie Mac-Seing, Andrew Elliott, Melissa Schyven, Lisa Matchim, Ryan Smith, Rachel Hutton, Bruce Woolley and Mathieu Locas (real estate), Jean Carrier and Myriam Fortin (environment), Gary Nachshen and Michel Legendre (pension and benefits), Lorna Cuthbert and Hélène Bussière (employment) and Paul Collins, Jeff Brown and Ian Disend (competition).

Standard Radio Inc. was represented by Goodmans LLP with a team that included Dale Lastman, Neil Sheehy, Cristina Alaimo and Greg Lemaich (corporate), Glenn Ernst and David Veneziano (tax), Tom Macdonald, Ken Herlin and Daniel Shapira (real estate and environmental), Jana Steele (pensions and benefits), Joe Morrison (employment), Rob Malcolmson and Clare Roughneen (communications), Amalia Trister (intellectual property) and Richard Annan (competition).
Astral's lending syndicate, which made available credit facilities in an aggregate amount of $1 billion, was represented by Marc Novello, Angela Onesi, Martin Racicot and Alexandre Gagnon of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP.