Bain Capital Acquires Verizon's Directory Operations

On November 9, 2004, affiliates of Bain Capital, a Boston-based global private investment firm, purchased Verizon Communications Inc.’s directory operations in Canada for C$1.985 billion. The directory operations, SuperPages Canada, is Canada’s second-largest directories publisher and is the official TELUS directory publisher in Western Canada. Online directory operations were also included in the transaction.

Bain Capital was represented in Canada by a team from Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg that included Shawn McReynolds, Timothy Moran, Peter Hong, Christian Gauthier, Conrad Druzeta and Jennifer Pankratz (M&A); Siobhan Monaghan, Ian Crosbie and Raj Juneja (tax); Nicholas Leblovic, Sonny Bhalla and Samantha Vaccaro (corporate finance and securities); and John Bodrug and Mark Katz (competition & international trade). A team from Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie comprising Paul Jarvis, Paul Broad and Stephanie Kalinowski assisted with employment and pension and benefits matters. Jay Ratzlaff, Robert Betteridge and Trish Fehr (corporate and banking) and Jeff Oke (securities) of Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer acted as local counsel in Alberta.

Bain Capital was represented in the US by Ropes & Gray, with a team that included R. Newcomb Stillwell, Howard Glazer, Philip Smith, Byung Choi, Jeffrey Doctoroff, Stephanie Dorn, Kraig Hitchcock, Chad Perry and Sunil Savkar (private equity and corporate finance); Ed Black, Johnny Chen and Weishi Li (intellectual property); and Christopher Leich and Jennifer Harding (tax).
Verizon was represented in-house by Philip Marx, associate general counsel - strategic transactions; and by John Thorne, senior vice-president and deputy general counsel, and David Wheeler, vice-president and associate general counsel - antitrust, who handled competition and Investment Canada Act matters. External counsel for Verizon were O’Melveny & Myers, with a team that included Gregory Patti, James Moriarty and Jason Cohen; and McMillan Binch, which handled competition and Investment Canada Act matters with a team that included Neil Campbell and Omar Wakil.