Caisse Affiliate Closes $378M Bankers Hall Complex Refinancing

On October 16, 2001, CDPQ Mortgage Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, established a $378 million term credit facility in favour of two subsidiaries of BPO Properties Ltd. (formerly Gentra Inc.), a Canadian public real estate corporation controlled by Brookfield Properties Corporation. The facility was established to allow the refinancing of certain existing indebtedness in respect of the property known as Bankers Hall Complex in Calgary, and is secured by first mortgages over that property. The combined facility represents the largest single commercial property loan completed in Canadian history to date.

A $26 million tranche of the financing took the form of a conventional mortgage loan, the repayment of which is secured by a first mortgage on the Royal Bank Building portion of the Bankers Hall Complex. The remaining $352 million credit facility took the form of a first mortgage bond maturing November 1, 2013.

Negotiations were handled on the business side by Jean Pinard and Tino Masecchia, respectively president and vice-president of CDPQ Mortgage Corporation, as underwriter; by Seamus Foran, senior vice-president, project finance and investments of Brookfield, for the borrower/issuer; and by David Dulberg, vice-president, RBC Capital Markets, who acted as exclusive advisor to Brookfield.

CDPQ Mortgage Corporation was represented by Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, with a legal team led by Pierre-Denis Leroux in Montreal and Andrew Oppenheim in Calgary. Other legal team members included Kevin Keyes, Garth Anderson, Lisa Buriak and Rob Housman in Calgary. Brookfield was represented by in-house counsel Cameron Black in Calgary and by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, with a team including George Valentini, Stephen Luff and Len Arnold in Toronto and Sherri Fountain, Nancy Diep and Andrée Blais in Calgary.