On April 29, 2016, the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) sold the business operations and assets of Roynat Lease Finance, a lease financing business and a division of Roynat Inc., to Meridian Credit Union Limited (Meridian), Ontario’s largest credit union. The Roynat Lease Finance business is one of Canada’s largest providers of equipment leasing, with offices across Canada, and had a portfolio of leases that was valued at approximately $910 million at the end of 2015.
The acquisition allows Meridian to diversify into new product and service offerings and territories outside of Ontario. Roynat Lease Finance will now operate as Meridian OneCap Credit Corp. The deal was announced on April 19, 2016, and financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The closing followed the satisfaction of various closing conditions including approval from the Deposit Insurance Corporation of Ontario.
The legal team for Scotiabank was led internally by Anita Mackey, Colin Levere and Alex Macmillan. Scotiabank was represented in the transaction by Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP with a team led by Paul Belanger (regulatory) and Jake Gilbert (corporate) and including Andrew Thompson and Hilary Crangle (corporate), Deborah Salzberger (competition), Jeremy Forgie and Holly Reid (benefits and employment), Jeffrey Shafer and Allan Gelkopf (income and commodity tax), Alexis Levine and Francois Dupuis (financial services) and David Feldman (technology).
Meridian’s legal team was led internally by Sunny Sodhi. Meridian was represented by Torys LLP with a team led by Richard Willoughby and which included Huw Evans and Jordan Fenton (corporate), Michael Feldman (lease finance and securitizations), Amanda Balasubramanian, Tom Zverina, Simon Williams and Jacob Weinstock (lending), Blair Keefe and Peter Aziz (financial institution regulatory), David Dell and Nooreen Bhanji (real estate), Joel Ramsey and Steve Slavens (IT), John Tobin and Saira Bhojani (tax), Lynne Lacoursière (employment), Michael Fortier (environmental), Omar Wakil and Rebecca Moskowitz (competition) and Teresa Reguly (IP).