Bennett Jones
To assist interested parties in navigating a going-private transaction in Canada, we have prepared the following summary of key considerations.
What is a Going-Private Transaction?
A going-private transaction converts a public company into a private company, eliminating the public shareholders and consolidating share ownership under one or a few shareholders.
There are two common reasons a going-private transaction is proposed:
- Management, or one or more shareholders of the target company, wants to buy-out the other public shareholders (called a Management Buyout or MBO)
- A third-party sponsor proposes to acquire the target company, with or without the support of management or a group of existing shareholders.
Going-private transactions are also sometimes referred to as leveraged buyouts (LBOs) as the party leading the go-private will often finance the purchase through debt at the target operating company level.