Canada Housing Trust Closes Offering

On March 24, 2003, Canada Housing Trust No. 1, a special purpose securitization trust, closed a $2.65 billion offering of 4.4 per cent Canada Mortgage Bonds, series 4, guaranteed by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP represented CMHC and was special counsel to the trust, with a team that included Rosalind Morrow (securities and derivatives), Stephen Redican and Gus Karantzoulis (banking and structured finance), Matt Campbell (securities) and Larissa Tkachenko and Jonathan Willson (tax) in Toronto and Daniel Gendron (civil) in Montreal. BLG assisted in-house counsel Douglas Tyler and Reem Hindieh, CMHC, and Ted Fujisawa, executive director, CIBC, the administrator of the trust. In the U.S., CMHC and the trust were represented by Gregory Shaw, Robert Harvey and Terry O’Brien of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.

The underwriters, led by CIBC World Markets Inc., Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch Canada Inc., RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and TD Bank were represented by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, with a team that included Carol Pennycook and Andrea Daly in Toronto and Scott Tayne in New York.