Altas Partners, a pioneer of long-life private equity investing, agreed to buy the largest educator of physical-therapy professionals in the United States. The Toronto investor this week announced it will pay US$400 million to acquire the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, an academic institution that provides graduate health-science degree programs, primarily in the field of physical and occupational therapy. USAHS appears to be right in the wheelhouse of Altas, which was founded in 2012 by Managing Partner Andrew Sheiner to make control-stake investments in hard-to-replicate businesses and hold them indefinitely.
Canadian telecommunications gear maker Mitel Networks Corp is selling itself to an investor group led by U.S. private equity firm Searchlight Capital Partners for about US$2 billion ($2.6 billion), Reuters reported. Excluding Ottawa-based Mitel’s net debt, the deal is worth about US$1.34 billion, according to Thomson Reuters calculation. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2018. Terry Matthews, Mitel's co-founder and chairman, said the transaction will provide Mitel with "additional flexibility as a private company to pursue the company’s move-to-the-cloud strategy.”
Canadian gaming company The Stars Group Inc said it had agreed to buy Sky Betting and Gaming from owners European private equity firm CVC Capital Partners and Sky Plc, in a deal worth US$4.7 billion, Reuters reported. It had been expected that CVC, 80 percent owner of the online betting site Sky Bet, would list the company publicly. But Toronto-based The Stars Group announced a deal that it said would create the world’s largest publicly-listed online gaming business. The deal comprises US$3.6 billion in cash and the rest in newly-issued shares.
Canadian waste management company GFL Environmental Inc said this week a group of investors led by U.K.-based BC Partners, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and others will provide new funding, giving GFL an enterprise value of $5.13 billion, Reuters reported. GFL, whose ‘Green for Life’ slogan is seen across major Canadian cities, said its current CEO Patrick Dovigi will remain in the role. Dovigi will also maintain his ownership in the company, while the new investors will acquire the interests of current partners including U.S.-based HPS Investment Partners, Australia's Macquarie Infrastructure Partners III and Canada's Hawthorn Equity Partners.
Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA this week received three binding bids for its gas pipeline network company Transportadora Associada de Gás SA (TAG), sources told Reuters. The bidding groups include one led by Australia’s Macquarie Group and joined by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, among others. All bids were higher than the US$5.2 billion Brookfield Asset Management paid in 2016 for another gas pipeline unit sold by Petrobras. Some of the proposals could be above US$7 billion.
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec held a 7.8 percent stake in Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd at the end of last year, according to its annual report, making it the largest independent shareholder of the pipeline company at the centre of a contentious expansion project, Reuters reported. The Caisse said it acquired the stake in the period following Kinder Morgan Canada’s initial public offering last May and before it announced plans to reduce its carbon footprint by 25 percent per dollar invested last October. Kinder Morgan is at the centre of an escalating crisis over a planned $7.4 billion Trans Mountain oil pipeline project that will almost triple the capacity of its line from Alberta to British Columbia.
Every year, Torys LLP conducts a much-anticipated review of private M&A deal terms in transactions the law firm has advised on. In a PE Hub Canada feature article, Partners Laurie Duke, Guy Berman and Stefan Stauder and Counsel Sophia Tolias provide a deep-dive analysis of the state of the Canadian M&A market and how favourable conditions for sellers, sustained cross-border dealmaking, the growing popularity of R&W insurance, and other key factors are influencing trends.
U.S. activist hedge fund Blue Harbour Group LP CEO Cliff Robbins told a conference in New York this week that Canadian business information management software company Open Text Corp could be acquired, Reuters reported. “There is potential for a strategic sale down the road,” Robbins said, adding that there has been significant consolidation in the software sector. Blue Harbour owns a 3.49 percent stake in Waterloo-based Open Text.
U.S. private equity firm Vista Equity Partners Management has agreed to merge two U.S. education technology companies it owns, PowerSchool and PeopleAdmin, with an investment from Canadian buyout firm Onex Corp, valuing the combined business at close to US$3 billion, including debt, sources told Reuters. The deal represents Onex’s biggest investment in the education software sector to date. Last year it hired Laurence Goldberg, a former head of Barclays Plc’s technology, media and telecom investing banking business, to find more such deals.
The Canadian government is looking into complaints that Restaurant Brands International Inc is not meeting the terms set out by Ottawa when it allowed the takeover of coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons, Reuters reported. Lawyers representing Tim Hortons franchisees sent a letter to Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains this month alleging the company has not lived up to commitments including maintaining the rent and royalty structure of Canadian franchises. Restaurant Brands was formed in 2014 when 3G Capital-backed Burger King acquired Tim Hortons for $12.6 billion.