CDPQ Mortgage Establishes $390M Credit Facility

On November 30, 2006, CDPQ Mortgage Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, established a $390,538,000 construction loan credit facility in favour of 299 Burrard Management Ltd., 299 Burrard Hotel Limited Partnership and 299 Burrard Residential Limited Partnership (collectively 299) in connection with the Fairmont Pacific Rim Vancouver, a 47-storey project comprised of 175 residential condominium and live/work units, a Fairmont hotel and associated retail premises, which is scheduled for completion in 2009. The Fairmont Pacific Rim Vancouver is one of the three largest landmark mixed use developments in Vancouver, British Columbia, all of which are being constructed by the Westbank and Peterson Groups. The hotel component of this project will be managed by Fairmont Hotels Inc. following completion.

A first tranche of the financing took place on November 30, 2006 to allow 299 to complete the acquisition of the lands on which the Fairmont Pacific Rim Vancouver will be constructed. These lands were the last remaining development site to be sold by Fairmont in the Coal Harbour waterfront area.

CDPQ Mortgage Corporation was represented by Madeleine Amyot, senior manager legal affairs, and Raymond Bail, legal counsel, of MCAP Real Estate Finance Group, and external counsel McCarthy Tétrault LLP, with a legal team led by Pierre-Denis Leroux in Montréal and Jill Pereira in Vancouver. Other McCarthy Tétrault LLP legal team members included Conrad Rego and Jessica Beverley. 299 and the interests of the Westbank Group were represented by Neil Kornfeld of Kornfeld MacKoff Silber LLP. The interests of the Peterson Group were represented by Stanley Wong and Andrew Kadler of Koffman Kalef LLP Business Lawyers. Fairmont was represented by in-house counsel Thomas Griffiths and external counsel Larry Sandrin of Bull, Housser & Tupper LLP in Vancouver and Peter Benudiz of Heller Ehrman LLP in Los Angeles, California.