Daniel Bénay is a partner in our Business Law Group in Montréal. His practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, securities, financing, corporate law, energy (power) and international legal consulting. He represents issuers and underwriters in a wide variety of public and private financings, including initial public offerings, cross-border offerings and international offerings.
In his international consulting practice, Mr. Bénay has advised on bank restructurings in Cameroon; securities legislation in Cameroon, secured transactions laws in Vietnam, Cambodia, El Salvador and Morocco, and implementation of privatization initiatives in Haiti.
Mr. Bénay was recently involved in the following transactions:
· Advising SSQ Groupe Financier and Fonds de solidarité FTQ in connection with the acquisition of AXA Life Insurance Inc.;
· Advising a syndicate of dealers co-led by RBC Capital Markets and TD Securities and consisting of BMO Capital Markets, Scotia Capital, CIBC World Markets, National Bank Financial, Casgrain & Company and Industrial Alliance Securities in connection with the offering of $250 million of 4.75% fixed-floating subordinated debentures due December 14, 2021 by Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc.;
· Advising ASICS in connection with the acquisition of its Canadian distributor;
· Advising Royal Bank of Canada and RBC Capital Trust complete $1.2 billion offering;
· Advising National Bank of Canada in connection with the renewal of its medium term notes program, the offering of $1.35 billion of medium term notes and $450 million of preferred shares;
· Advising National Bank of Canada and NBC Asset Trust in connection with the initial public offering of $400 million of Trust Capital Securities;
· Advising Royal Bank of Canada and RBC Subordinated Notes Trust in connection with the initial public offering of $1 billion of Trust Subordinated Notes;
· Advising the Agents (led by BMO Capital Markets) in connection with the $800 million initial public offering of BMO Subordinated Notes Trust;
· Advising Addenda Capital Inc. in the context of its acquisition by way of amalgamation by the Co-operator Group;
· Advising Dexia Crédit Local in connection with the $250 million term loan to Ville de Montréal;
· Advising Dexia Crédit Local in connection with the $175 million term loan to Société de transport de Montréal;
· Advising Dexia Crédit Local in connection with the $140 million construction and term loans.
Mr. Bénay is profiled in the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, a guide to the leading law firms and practitioners in Canada, as a leader in the area of Energy (Electricity) - transactional matters and he is also rated by the Martindale-Hubbell Directory. He also appears as leading lawyer in natural resources law in the last edition of Best Lawyers in Canada.
Mr. Bénay received his LLL from the Faculty of Law of the Université de Montréal in 1976 and his J.D. from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa in 1980. He also completed graduate studies in law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa in 1980 (LLM). He was called to the Québec bar in 1977.