199 Bay St, Suite 5300, Commerce Court West, Toronto, ON
Year called to bar: 1995 (ON)
Stuart Carruthers is a partner and member of the Insurance & Reinsurance, Financial Products & Services, and Mergers & Acquisitions Groups. He is widely recognized as the preeminent transactional, commercial, governance and regulatory advisor to insurance and reinsurance companies and brokers in Canada. Stuart is repeatedly cited for both his transactional and regulatory expertise in the industry by numerous leading directories, including Chambers – Band 1, IFLR1000 – Market Leader in Canada, Who’s Who Legal: Canada – Most Highly Recommended Practitioner, and Lexpert – Most Frequently Recommended in Ontario. Stuart has particular expertise in insurance, reinsurance and related financial services transactions and regulatory matters, including acquisitions and dispositions of insurers and books of business, formation and licensing of insurers and intermediaries, financing transactions, outsourcing transactions, white labelling initiatives and advice on a broad range of distribution, market conduct, compliance and other regulatory matters. Stuart has acted on more than 30 completed sales of Canadian insurance companies.
On October 3, 2018, The Bank of Nova Scotia (“Scotiabank”) completed the acquisition of MD Financial Management from Canadian Medical Association (“CMA”) for a purchase price of $2.585 billion.
On July 1, 2017, Trimont Financial Ltd. (Trimont), a wholly owned subsidiary of The Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Co. (Wawanesa), acquired Western Financial Group Inc. and Western Life Assurance Co. (collectively, Western) from Desjardins Financial Corp. Inc. (Desjardins), a Desjardins Group subsidiary.
On December 14, 2015, Guardian Assurance Limited (Guardian Assurance) completed the sale of its 19 per cent interest in E-L Financial Services Limited (ELFS), the parent company of The Empire Life Insurance Company (Empire Life), to E-L Financial Corporation Limited (E-L Financial) for $200 million. As a result of this sale, E-L Financial will own 100 per cent of ELFS, which owns 98.3 per cent of The Empire Life Insurance Company.
Arthur J. Gallagher Canada Limited, a subsidiary of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AJG), completed its acquisition of Noraxis Capital Corporation from Roins Financial Services Limited, which also owns the RSA Canada group of companies (RSA). The aggregate purchase price for the business, including minority interests and subject to adjustment, was approximately $500 million. Noraxis management shareholders continue to hold approximately 11 per cent of the business.
