Corporate Finance & Securities

Our Corporate Finance & Securities Group provides practical and strategic advice to assist clients to identify and access available sources of capital. We work closely with clients to formulate and structure innovative solutions for numerous types of financing transactions across every stage of a company’s growth cycle, from seed and angel investors to venture capital and private equity to private placements to public offerings.

With experience across multiple industries—including banking and finance, mining, real estate, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, technology and cannabis—we act for various investors and agents, including exempt market dealers, as well as entities in need of capital, giving clients the advantage of our knowledge and perspective from both sides of a transaction. In conjunction with our Litigation & Dispute Resolution Group, we provide sophisticated counsel to the spectrum of participants in the capital markets, from aggrieved investors, shareholders, agents and brokers, to reporting issuers, in connection with the myriad of issues they face. In that regard, we provide representation and appear before all of the administrative and regulatory bodies, including the Ontario Securities Commission and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO).

Our strong business acumen, coupled with vast knowledge of the law and securities landscape, our lawyers are proficient in assisting clients with corporate and securities compliance issues, such as continuous disclosure and insider trading requirements of issuers and individuals. We regularly coordinate and hold shareholder meetings, have expertise in proxy contests, as well as significant experience in corporate governance principles, including composition and the use of independent directors and committees of the board. We act for issuers seeking stock exchange listings and for individuals and corporations on registration and registrant compliance matters. We are counsel to many foreign clients in Canadian aspects of public transactions and clients in other Canadian jurisdictions, with respect to Ontario corporate and securities matters.

Members of our Group also design and implement exits from private equity investments, have expertise in the vast array of management compensation arrangements and have been engaged to assist in all aspects of capital pool company (CPC) transactions. We advise clients on complex securities legislation and actively assist them with corporate and securities compliance matters, including compliance with the rules and policies of stock exchanges and self-regulatory organizations, such as the Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange, Canadian Securities Exchange and the CIRO.

In addition to the lawyers who regularly practice in this area, our Group works collaboratively with lawyers in other practice areas, providing our clients with comprehensive solutions to all of their legal needs.