On June 27, 2019, Canadian Natural Resources Limited (“Canadian National”) — Canada’s largest oil and gas producer — completed its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Devon Canada Corporation (“Devon”) for a cash purchase price of $3.775 billion, with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2019. This is the second largest upstream oil and gas M&A event in North America to date this year.
The acquired production, infrastructure and land will add to Canadian Natural’s existing thermal in situ and primary heavy oil areas providing synergies to more effectively and efficiently operate, upon full integration of the employees and the assets.
Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP acted for Canadian Natural with a deal team that included Sherri Fountain (Business Law), Doug Richardson (Tax), Chris Hersh (Competition), Kristin Taylor (Employment & Labour), Robert Hamilton (Business Law) and Corinne Grigoriu (Tax).
Bennett Jones LLP acted for Devon with a deal team that included Patrick Maguire, Jana Prete, John Piasta, Kevin Myson, Christopher Yang and Emerson Frostad (Corporate), Beth Riley (Competition), Anu Nijhawan, Jared Mackey and Derrick Hosanna (Tax), Chris Simard (Restructuring), Carl Cunningham (Employment), Susan Seller (Pensions) and Sebastien Gittens (IP).