Stikeman Elliott has inducted four lawyers into its partnership, including transactional lawyers Jonah Mann and Tim McCormick. The other new partners are tax lawyer Julie D’Avignon and litigator Maria Konyukhova.
Mann, a Toronto-based partner in the firm’s corporate group, specializes in M&A, corporate finance, securities, and compliance matters. Many of his clients are private equity firms based either in Canada or the U.S. In a discussion with IFLR1000, Mann issued generally positive predictions about U.S.-Canadian deal flow in 2015.
“On the private M&A side, a lot of U.S. private equity firms are still shopping up north, and we may see increased activity this year now that the U.S. dollar has sharply appreciated relative to the Canadian dollar. We frequently work with U.S. private equity firms directly or team up with their U.S. counsel to facilitate acquisitions here in Canada,” Mann said.
Mann added that it is almost rare to see pure Canadian M&A nowadays. Every transaction seems to have a cross-border or international component, he noted.
“When our Canadian clients want to acquire businesses outside of Canada, we will often take a lead role in negotiating those deals – we work really closely with some clients, know them well, and they trust that we know how to represent them best anywhere in the world. We also act for many international buyers looking to make acquisitions in Canada and help them navigate their investment, including any regulatory considerations,” Mann continued.
McCormick, who advises dealers and issuers in corporate financings and also handles corporate governance and compliance, generally concurred about one of the factors driving deals in Canada, while stressing that the purely domestic deal is no anomaly.
“I would agree with Jonah, it’s a lot more attractive for U.S.-based entities to do business in Canada when the U.S. dollar goes further. But it will be interesting to see whether there are more domestic deals as a result of recent commodity price volatility. The Goldcorp-Probe Mines deal was recently announced which involved two Canadian companies. By U.S. standards, it was a relatively small deal, about C$550 million, but may be a signal of increased M&A activity generally,” McCormick said.
“The impact of the low oil price and volatility in other commodities may affect domestic M&A just as much as it would cross-border M&A, so from that perspective, we all expect, and are hoping for, more activity,” he added.
Mann earned his law degree at McGill University. McCormick obtained his degree at the University of Windsor.