Canada Housing Trust No. 1 Closes Offering

On December 22, 2004, Canada Housing Trust No. 1, a special purpose securitization trust, the issuances of which are guaranteed by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC), closed a two-tranche offering totaling $6.25 billion—$5.45 billion of fixed-rate Canada Mortgage Bonds, series 9 and $800 million of floating-rate Canada Mortgage Bonds, series 10.

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG) represented CMHC and was special counsel to the trust, with a team that included Rosalind Morrow (securities and derivatives), Stephen Redican (banking and structured finance), Matt Campbell and Paul Simon (securities), Gus Karantzoulis and Terence Lui (banking and structured finance) and Larissa Tkachenko (tax) in Toronto, and Daniel Gendron (civil) in Montreal. BLG assisted CMHC’s in-house counsel Douglas Tyler and Reem Hindieh. In the US, CMHC and the trust were represented by Lewis Steinberg and Darren Heil (tax), and Neil Westreich, Robert Harvey and Terry O’Brien (securitization) of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.

The underwriters, led by the Toronto-Dominion Bank, CIBC World Markets Inc., Deutsche Bank AG London, Merrill Lynch Canada Inc. and RBC Dominion Securities Inc. on the series 9 offering, and by the Toronto-Dominion Bank, CIBC World Markets Inc., Merrill Lynch Canada Inc. and RBC Dominion Securities Inc. on the series 10 offering, were represented by Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP. The Davies team consisted of Carol Pennycook, Sonny Bhalla, Melanie Koszegi and Ron Wilson (tax) in Toronto, and Scott Tayne in New York.