Shoppers Drug Mart Completes $924M Public Offering

On November 26, 2003, certain institutional and shareholders of Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. completed a bought deal secondary offering of 33 million common shares at $28 per share for gross proceeds of $924 million. The shares were also sold on a private placement basis to certain qualified US investors. CIBC World Markets Inc., Merrill Lynch Canada Inc., RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and Scotia Capital Inc. co-led the underwriting syndicate, which included BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., TD Securities Inc., National Bank Financial, Credit Suisse First Boston Canada Inc. and Morgan Stanley Canada Ltd.. Shoppers Drug Mart did not receive any of the proceeds from the secondary offering.

Shoppers Drug Mart was represented in-house by Bryna Goldberg, executive vice-president and general counsel; Richard Alderson, vice-president, legal; and Barbara Ruddy, counsel; and by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, with a team that included Mark DesLauriers, Phil Lefko, Lori Stein and Andrew Moshoian (corporate and securities), and assisted by Firoz Ahmed and Alex Pankratz (tax) in Toronto and Dominique Têtu and Jacques Beaumier in Montreal.

The selling shareholders were represented in the US by Gary Horowitz, Marisa Stavenas and Leontine Chuang of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York. The underwriters were represented by Torys LLP, with a team that included Jamie Scarlett, Kevin Morris, Adam Armstrong, Eric So and Harry Gousopoulos in Toronto and Andy Beck and Darren Baccus in New York.