CANADA LAW AND PRACTICE Contributed by: Kevin West, Andrea Hill, Priya Ratti and Meryam Kellow, SkyLaw
2. Overview of Regulatory Field 2.1 Acquiring a Company Most public company acquisitions in Canada are conducted by way of: • a takeover bid, either hostile (unsolicited) or friendly (solicited and/or negotiated); or • a negotiated, court-approved plan of arrange- ment. Companies can also be acquired by way of: • an asset or share purchase; or • an amalgamation or other corporate reorgani- sation. 2.2 Primary Regulators M&A activity in Canada is primarily regulated by: • the Canadian federal government, particularly where the target is in a regulated industry or the acquiror is non-Canadian; • provincial securities regulators; and • stock exchanges. Reporting issuers, including all issuers with securities listed on a Canadian stock exchange, must file continuous disclosure documents on SEDAR+, a web-based platform for electronic filing and public data access for Canada’s capi - tal markets. Reporting insiders – including direc- tors, officers and 10% beneficial owners of a class of securities of a reporting issuer – must file trade reports on the System for Electronic Disclosure by Insiders (SEDI) unless an exemp - tion is available. There is no single national securities regulator in Canada and multiple attempts at creating one have failed. At present, there are 13 securities
Oil industry M&A remained active in 2024, with notable transactions such as: Canadian Natu - ral Resources’ acquisition of Chevron’s Alberta assets for USD6.5 billion, Enbridge’s CAN4.3 bil - lion acquisition of Fall West Holdco from Domin - ion Energy and Teck’s sale of its steel-making coal business to Glencore for USD7.3 billion. M&A in the oil and gas sector appears promising. A major deal already underway is the USD2.05 billion acquisition of Dutch green fuel-maker, OCI Global by Canada’s Methanex, the largest methanol producer in the world. Technology Canada has a solid presence within the technol - ogy sector. It is home to leading technology hubs and companies, such as Shopify, as well as to market leaders in numerous sectors, including cleantech. As of May 2024, 88% of the cleantech sector companies listed on the TSX and TSX-Venture exchanges were headquartered in Canada. Technology companies have lost a lot of value from the stock market highs of 2021, and more going-private transactions are expected. For example, Montreal-based Nuvei Corp. was tak - en private by a US private equity firm for USD6.3 billion, and Industrial and Financial Systems acquired Copperleaf Technologies for CAD1 billion. The technology sector has been active: Canada Pension Plan Investments participated in the largest data centre deal globally – the acquisi - tion of Airtrunk by Blackstone, and Singapore’s Bitdeer Technologies Group announced in Feb - ruary 2025 its acquisition of a 101 MW site in Alberta for USD21.7 million where it will build a data centre for Bitcoin mining.
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