J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC and Värde Partners acquire CitiFinancial Canada, now Fairstone Financial

On March 31, 2017, J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC (“J.C. Flowers”) and Värde Partners completed the acquisition of CitiFinancial Canada (now Fairstone Financial Inc. (“Fairstone”)) from an affiliate of Citigroup Inc. (“Citi”).

Fairstone is Canada’s leading non-bank provider of responsible lending solutions. With roots in Canada since 1923 and over 200 branches coast to coast, Fairstone provides personal loans and home equity loans designed to suit today’s borrowing needs. Fairstone also partners with a wide network of businesses to deliver flexible consumer financing programs. 

J.C. Flowers is a leading private investment firm dedicated to investing globally in the financial services industry. Founded in 1998, the firm has invested more than $15 billion of capital in 47 portfolio companies in 17 countries across a range of industry subsectors including banking, insurance and reinsurance, securities firms, specialty finance, and services and asset management. With approximately $6 billion of assets under management, J.C. Flowers has offices in New York and London. 

Värde Partners is a $12 billion global alternative investment firm that employs a credit-oriented, value-based approach to investing across a broad array of geographies, segments and asset types, including real estate, corporate credit, mortgages, specialty finance, transportation and infrastructure. The firm sponsors and manages a family of private investment funds with a global investor base that includes foundations and endowments, pension plans, insurance companies, other institutional investors and private clients. Now in its third decade, Värde employs 250 people with main offices in Minneapolis, London and Singapore and additional offices around the world. 

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management. 

Citi was represented in-house by Brian Cheng and by Torys LLP with a team including Richard Willoughby, Leah Frank, Paulina Taneva (M&A), Steven Slavens (transition services), Sumeet Dang (IP licensing) and Andrew Silverman (tax). 

J.C. Flowers was represented in-house by Amy Bohannon and Värde Partners was represented in-house by Mark Rabogliatti. J.C. Flowers and Värde Partners were represented in the United States by Kirkland & Ellis LLP with a team including Tana Ryan, Navneeta Rekhi, Michele Marie Cumpston, Edwin del Hierro, Sarah Stasny, Richard Campbell, Robert Schmadeke (corporate), Kenneth Morrison, Jeffrey O’Connor, David Nemecek, Nisha Kanchanapoomi, Matthew Hays, Roger Douglas Lee (finance), William Levy, Jeffrey Ekeberg, Miles Johnson (tax), Vladimir Khodosh, Kyle Barnett (intellectual property), Mario Mancuso, Lucille Hague (FCPA/international trade); and in Canada by Stikeman Elliott LLP with a team including John Leopold, Sophie Lamonde, Kevin Custodio, Marc-William Carrothers (M&A), Natasha vandenHoven, Stephanie Weschler (employment, labour & pensions), Frank Mathieu (tax), Howard Rosenoff, François Gilbert, Jason Kroft, Mark McElheran (finance & securitizations), Meaghan Obee Tower (regulatory), Michael Kilby and Michael Laskey (competition).