Cogeco Acquires Quebec Radio Stations

On February 1, 2011, following approval of the transaction by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Cogeco Inc. (“Cogeco”) completed the acquisition of 11 Québec-based radio stations from Corus Entertainment Inc. (“Corus”) for a purchase price of $80 million.

The purchase price was financed in part by a credit facility made available to Cogeco by a lending syndicate composed of The Bank of Nova Scotia as administrative agent and lender, and the Imperial Bank of Commerce as lender.

The stations acquired are Montréal stations CKAC-AM, CFQR-FM, CHMP-FM, CKOI-FM and CFEL-FM and CFOM-FM in Québec City; CHLN-FM in Trois-Rivières; CHLT-FM and CKOY-FM in Sherbrooke; CIME-FM in St-Jérôme and CJRC-FM in Ottawa-Gatineau. Cogeco will divest the CFEL-FM and CJEC-FM stations in Québec and one FM station in the Sherbrooke market, namely Radio Sherbrooke 104.5 FM.

Corus was represented in-house by a team led by Gary Maavara, Executive Vice President and General Counsel and Randy Witten, Vice President and Associate General Counsel, and by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP as outside counsel, with a team that included Sébastien Savage, Diana Lyrintzis, Fotini Gagaoudakis and Anaïs Mair (corporate/commercial) in Montréal and George Addy and Elisa Kearney (competition) in Toronto.

Cogeco was represented in-house by a team led by Christian Jolivet, Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, and Caroline Dignard, Director, Legal Affairs and by outside counsel Stikeman Elliott LLP, with a team that included Warren Katz, David Massé and Maria Reda (corporate/commercial), Jean Lamothe, Sylvia Avedis, Maxime Jacquin and Kevin Custodio (financing) in Montréal and Jeffrey Brown and Sharon Seung (competition) in Ottawa and Toronto.

The lenders were represented by Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, with a team that included James Papadimitriou, Marc-Antoine La Rochelle, Aude Godfroy and Aryana Rousseau in Montréal.