Neill May and Michael Partridge Interviewed in "Hostile bids in decline", CBA National Magazine

Neill May and Michael Partridge recently sat down with CBA National Magazine to discuss recent changes to Canada's takeover bid regime:

Neill May of Goodmans in Toronto doesn’t think the new regime has played a major role in the decline of takeovers since its implementation. “Other factors play a more significant part in determining the level of transaction activity. Those factors include the cost of funds, other regulatory considerations (foreign investment, anti-trust, industry-specific, other…), the increasing level of activity in the shareholder activism space, macroeconomic factors, and other influences.”

There are lessons to be learned from the Aurora/CanniMed bid, says Michael Partridge at Goodmans in Toronto. The decision “demonstrated the regulators’ inclination to permit the new framework to function as drafted and corresponding disinclination to allow rights plans to vary the operation of that framework or to make orders that adapt the framework to particular circumstances. That might have been expected, because presumably a core objective of the new rules was to create certainty, and because the rules were the product of a long process involving different regulators so granting relief would be a complex and challenging process.”

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