CanWel Building Materials Income Fund Completes IPO and Secondary Offering

On May 18, 2005, CanWel Building Materials Ltd., one of Canada's largest national distributors in the building materials and related products sector, completed a plan of arrangement resulting in the conversion of CanWel from a corporate entity into an income fund. Pursuant to the plan of arrangement, common shares of CanWel were exchanged for units of CanWel Building Materials Income Fund on the basis of two units of the Fund per share. In connection with the plan of arrangement, an initial public offering and secondary offering of 14,368,000 units was completed for gross proceeds of approximately $125 million.

The offering was underwritten by a syndicate of underwriters that was led by GMP Securities Ltd. and included Scotia Capital Inc., Canaccord Capital Corp., CIBC World Markets Inc. and Dundee Securities Corp. The net proceeds of the initial public offering were used to reduce a portion of the outstanding principal amount under credit facilities in favour of CanWel Building Materials Ltd. and its subsidiaries. The Fund did not receive any proceeds of the secondary offering.

CanWel was represented by a team led by Rob Doman, corporate secretary, that included Goodmans LLP with a team that comprised Justin Beber, Neil Sheehy, Richard Warren and Catherine Youdan (corporate/ securities), Mitch Sherman, Carrie Smit and Sam Tyler (tax) and Jean Anderson (banking).

The syndicate of underwriters was represented by Wildeboer Dellelce LLP with a team that included Troy Pocaluyko, James Brown and Paula Hewitt (corporate/securities) and Kevin Fritz (tax).