Best Buy to Acquire Future Shop for $580M

Best Buy Co. Inc., the largest US retailer of technology and entertainment products, has agreed to acquire Future Shop Ltd., the largest Canadian retailer of consumer electronics, for $580 million. Best Buy has agreed to tender an offer of cash for Future Shop stock for $17 per share.

Burnaby, BC-based Future Shop will operate as a separate Canadian subsidiary of Best Buy Co. Inc. The transaction was scheduled to close late September 2001, subject to regulatory approvals.

Best Buy was represented by Stikeman Elliott and Minneapolis-based Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP. Stikeman Elliott’s team consisted of John W. Leopold, Franziska Ruf, Louis Morisset and Robert Carelli (corporate); Lawson Hunter, Paul Collins, Martin Scheim and Michel Gélinas (regulatory); and Fred Harvey and Luc Bernier (tax). Robins Kaplan’s team was led by John Houston, with assistance from Sari Laitinen and Sandra Schreur-Jones. Future Shop was represented by Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, with a team consisting of Neil de Gelder, Shelley Tratch, Joan Chambers and Fred Pletcher (securities and corporate) and Colin MacDonald, Jeffrey Thomas, Debra Finlay and Adam Fanaki (regulatory). Acting as US counsel to Future Shop was Shearman & Sterling with a team led by Mark Roppel, with assistance from Sirisha Gummaregula, Sonya Reiss and Sally O’Brien.