Dentons continues to expand its cross-border corporate transactional practice with a lateral hire from a competing firm.
Corey MacKinnon, who worked previously at Baker & McKenzie and the now-defunct Heenan Blaikie, joins Dentons Canada’s Toronto office as a partner. MacKinnon advises clients in the mining, technology, insurance, healthcare, media, and manufacturing sectors on corporate deals. The scope of MacKinnon’s practice encompasses deals in Europe, Latin America, and Australia as well as Canada and the United States. MacKinnon represented The Westaim Corporation in the C$530 million sale of JEVCO Insurance Company to Intact Financial Corporation, advised Aur Resources in a C$4.1 billion takeover bid by Teck Cominco, and provided counsel to Dia Bras Exploration in its $285.8 million purchase of Sociedad Minera Corona and in a $150 million credit facility with Banco de Credito del Perú, among many other transactions.
Having a highly diversified practice helps MacKinnon stay busy in face of a downturn in one or another sector.
“Mining, obviously, has been down for years now, and with the recent price of oil, it’s challenging for a lot of Canadian corporations. At the same time, the Canadian markets are always evolving and trying to diversify and mature a little bit. We’ve seen success stories recently in tech sector – both biotech and healthcare,” MacKinnon stated.
Another trend to which MacKinnon is attuned involves inbound transactions by Australian companies, often in the mining sector.
“We’ve seen work on transactions where Australian-listed mining issuers have come to Canada and accessed the capital markets here. Generally speaking, in addition to the institutional investors here, there’s a pretty strong retail base,” said MacKinnon.
MacKinnon holds an LL.B. from the Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, an M.A. from Dalhousie University, and a B.A. from Mount Allison University.