855 2nd St SW, Suite 4500, Bankers Hall E, Calgary, AB
Year called to bar: 1998 (ON); 1999 (New York); 2007 (AB)
John Mercury, head of the firm's Private Equity practice group, concentrates on private investments and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and PIPE transactions, primarily on behalf of Canadian and US financial sponsors. John also spends time advising general partners and investors in the formation of private equity funds and other investment vehicles. His clients span a variety of industries, including energy, financial services, consumer products and manufacturing. John joined Bennett Jones after spending nearly a decade in New York, where he practised corporate and US tax law with a leading New York-based law firm and where he worked as an investment banker with Merrill Lynch in its M&A group. John provided legal and financial advice to a broad range of US, Canadian and foreign companies, primarily in the fields of mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, debt and equity financings and corporate governance matters. He is a member of the firm's board of directors and serves on a number of corporate and not-for-profit boards. He is also a member of the American Bar Association and the New York City Bar.
Kissner Group Holdings LP (“Kissner”) completed its acquisition of NSC Minerals Ltd. (“NSC”), a market-leading provider of salt products in Western Canada and the North Central United States, from an investor group led by Altas Partners.
On October 17, 2017, Coeur Mining, Inc. (Coeur), a public gold and silver company listed on the New York Stock Exchange acquired all of the outstanding shares of JDS Silver Holdings Ltd. (JDS Silver), a private British Columbia silver mining company, for aggregate consideration of up to US$250 million pursuant to a plan of arrangement.
Vesta Energy Corp. (Vesta) completed a $295-million equity financing co-led by energy private equity firms Riverstone Holdings, LLC (Riverstone) and JOG Capital Corp. (JOG). Other investors included members of the Vesta management team.
On May 11, 2017, companies controlled by Waterous Energy Fund (“WEF”) acquired approximately 67 per cent of the issued and outstanding common shares of Northern Blizzard Resources Inc. (“Northern Blizzard”) from affiliates of Riverstone Holdings, LLC (“Riverstone”), and NGP Energy Capital Management, LLC (“NGP”) in a transaction valued at approximately $244 million.
On December 14, 2016, Tervita Corporation (“Tervita”), a leading environmental solutions provider, implemented its court-approved plan of arrangement under the Canada Business Corporations Act (the “Plan”).
On January 6, 2017, DirectCash Payments Inc. (“DirectCash”) completed an arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (Alberta) involving Cardtronics plc (“Cardtronics”) in which an affiliate of Cardtronics acquired all of the issued and outstanding common shares of DirectCash for cash consideration of $19.00 per common share. Together with the repayment of DirectCash’s third party indebtedness (including the redemption of all of the issued and outstanding ...
On June 28, 2016, Riverstone Investment Group LLC (Riverstone) completed the acquisition of a 50-per-cent ownership interest from Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) in the Utopia Pipeline Project (UPP).