WESCO International Completes $1.14B Acquisition of EECOL Electric

WESCO International, Inc., through a wholly owned subsidiary, completed the purchase of EECOL Electric Corp. for $1.14 billion. WESCO is a leading provider of electrical, industrial and communications MRO and OEM products, construction materials, and advanced supply chain management and logistics services. Founded in 1919, EECOL is one of Canada's premier full-line distributors of electrical equipment, products, and services with approximately $0.9 billion in annual sales, 57 locations across Canada and 20 in South America, and more than 20,000 customers. EECOL has a strong warehouse-based business focused on serving industrial, oil, gas, mining, utility and commercial and residential construction customers. At the same time as completing the purchase, WESCO entered into a new term loan facility of $850,000,000 million with Credit Suisse as agent and lead lender and increased its revolving loan facility with J.P. Morgan, as agent and lead lender by $200,000,000 to $600,000,000.

WESCO's team was led by Diane Lazzaris, Vice President, Legal Affairs, and included Michael Kuder, Senior Counsel, and Mitchell Paterline, Counsel. McMillan LLP handled all Canadian aspects of the acquisition led by Frank Archibald with a team consisting of Kevin Plowman, Bruce Chapple, Marie Beamer and Julia Loney (corporate); Casey Halladay and Devin Anderson (competition); David Ross, Fred Gjoka, Novy Cheema and Stacey Handley (real estate); Todd Miller (tax); Mark Rowbotham (pension); Henry Krupa (environment) and Lyndsay Wasser (employment).

EECOL was represented on the sale by Donald Kelly, QC, and by Robert Benson, Matthew Kachur, Wai-Yue Tse and Rahim Merchant of Warren Tettensor Amantea LLP and on competition matters by Omar Wakil and Rory McGillis of Torys LLP.

McMillan also handled all Canadian aspects of both the new term loan and the increase in the revolving loan led by Don Waters with a team consisting of Yoni Patel, Maria Sagan and Douglas Pedlow. In the US, WESCO was advised by Brett Barragate, Kevin Samuels and Caitlin Kozan of Jones Day on the term loan facility and Charlie Harris of K&L Gates LLP on the revolving loan facility.

Credit Suisse was advised in the US by Sal Guerrera, Rene Ghadimi and Kyle Hatton of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and in Canada by Jon Holmstrom, David Johnson, Louise Kennedy, Felix Gutierrez and Alexandre Gagnon (banking and finance); Huy Do (competition); Andrea Centa (real estate) and Christopher Steeves (tax) of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP.

J. P. Morgan was advised in the US by David Ruediger and Barry Smith at Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP and in Canada by David Amato and Victoria Everett of Norton Rose Canada LLP.