Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec Closes $5B Note Offering

On November 25, 2009, CDP Financial Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, completed a global offering of US$5 billion of senior notes. The offering comprised US$2 billion of 3 per cent senior notes due 2014, US$1.75 billion of 4.40 per cent senior notes due 2019 and US$1.25 billion of 5.60 per cent senior notes due 2039. This offering is the largest non-government guaranteed offering by any Canadian issuer in US dollars to date.

The initial purchasers for the offering were Goldman, Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, Banc of America Securities LLC, RBC Capital Markets Corporation, BMO Capital Markets Corp., Desjardins Securities International Inc., NBF Securities (USA) Corp., CIBC World Markets Corp., Scotia Capital (USA) Inc. and TD Securities (USA) LLC.

CDP Financial and the Caisse were represented by Claude Bergeron, executive vice-president, legal affairs and secretariat; Sophie Lussier, director, legal affairs, financial markets and derivatives and Julie Tremblay, legal counsel; by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP in Canada, with a team that comprised Sylvain Cossette, Olivier Désilets, Sébastien Roy and Christine Lenis (corporate finance and securities); Rita Lc de Santis and Alain Murad (corporate); and Fred Purkey (tax); and by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in the United States, with a team that comprised Edwin S. Maynard, David S. Huntington, Piibe Jogi and Adam B. Hahn (corporate finance and securities) and David Sicular and Mei Lai (tax).

The initial purchasers were represented by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Canada, with a team that comprised Vitale A. Santoro, François Paradis and Christopher Main (corporate finance and securities); and Mark Brender (tax); and by Shearman & Sterling LLP in the United States, with a team that comprised Christopher J. Cummings, Stephen C. Centa, Hugo Sin and Sonja Sun (corporate finance and securities); Laurence E. Crouch, Douglas R. McFadyen and Anil Kalia (tax); Sheila Lavu and Oliver Loxley (capital markets); and Nathan J. Greene, Jesse P. Kanach and Steven Homan (asset management).