Carmanah Acquires CAE Wood Assets

On May 6, 2003, Vancouver-based CARMANAH Design and Manufacturing Inc. acquired the assets of CAE Wood Products GP (CWP), a division of Saint-Laurent, Quebec-based CAE’s former Forestry Systems business unit. The value of the deal is confidential. CWP’s former management team and TD Capital Canadian Private Equity Partners recently formed CARMANAH to facilitate a management buyout of CWP.

For the acquisition, TD Capital and CARMANAH were represented by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, with a team that included Patrick Barry, Melanie Koszegi and Sarah Powell. CAE was represented in-house by Hartland Paterson, vice-president, legal, and general counsel, and by Stikeman Elliott LLP with a team led by Edward Claxton, and assisted by Hélène Deschamps-Marquis, Greg Plater and David Martin.

In connection with the acquisition of the CWP assets, CARMANAH obtained permanent and working capital financing from The Bank of Nova Scotia. For the financing, CARMANAH was represented by Sarbjit Basra and Brett Seifred of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg, and Scotiabank was represented by Alison Manzer and David Budd of Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP.