Sunshine Oilsands Raises $230M And Allies With Chinese Investors

On March 15, 2011, Sunshine Oilsands Limited announced that it had successfully raised $230 million and that in January and February of 2011 successfully secured significant common equity investments from China Life Insurance (Overseas) Company Limited (“China Life Overseas”), Bank of China Group Investment Limited and several other strategic investors totalling approximately $230,000,000.

Sunshine Oilsands is a private Canadian company that owns and controls 100 per cent of 1,153,600 acres (4,668 sq. km.) of oil sands leases in the Athabasca Oil Sands Area in Alberta, Canada.

This is the largest lease position in the region and accounts for approximately 7 per cent of all leases granted in the area.

Sunshine Oilsands was advised in this transaction by McCarthy Tétrault LLP with a team led by Rick Pawluk and that consisted of TJ Kang (tax) and Greg Turnbull (securities).

China Life Overseas is a subsidiary of China Life Insurance Co., the largest insurer in China, and was advised by Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP with a team that included Lloyd Symons, Chelsea Bushfield, Jonathan Bahnuik and Harpreet Nahal (corporate/securities); Michael Black (energy) and Clarke Barnes (tax).

Bank of China Group Investment Limited is the professional investment management company of Bank of China Limited. Bank of China Group Investment is based in Hong Kong and has invested in a large number of projects.

For this investment, Bank of China Group Investment Limited was advised by Stikeman Elliott LLP with a team that consisted of David Taniguchi and David Lefebvre (corporate/securities).