Bill Gula is a partner practising in the mergers and acquisitions and the corporate finance and securities groups. Bill is one of Canada's leading M&A professionals, with over 30 years of experience, including 7 years as Head of Mergers and Acquisitions for Scotia Capital. This combination of legal and financial advisory experience gives Bill a unique perspective in advising clients on M&A transactions, corporate governance and other matters.
Bill was a partner with Davies between 1981 and 1997 and was widely regarded, domestically and internationally, as one of Canada's foremost M&A lawyers, particularly in the area of public company take-over bids and defences. Since rejoining the firm in late 2004, Bill has acted as lead advisor on a number of notable transactions, including advising Agricore United on the $1.8 billion hostile take-over bid and subsequent acquisition by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool; advising Dynatec on its $1.6 billion sale to Sherritt International; advising Retirement Residences REIT on its sale to Public Sector Pension Investment Board for total consideration of $3 billion; advising Trizec Canada on its sale to Brookfield along with Trizec Properties in a transaction valued at $9 billion; advising Masonite on its $3.1 billion sale to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.; and advising Wheaton River Minerals Ltd. on its $2.4 billion merger with Goldcorp Inc. in 2005.
Between 1997 and 2004, Bill was Managing Director and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Scotia Capital Inc., the investment banking arm of Scotiabank. In that role, he was a senior advisor to public and private company clients, including some of Canada's leading multinational companies, with respect to domestic and foreign mergers, acquisitions and divestitures with aggregate value well in excess of $100 billion. Some notable transactions in which Bill was involved include Manulife's acquisition of John Hancock, the Allstream/Manitoba Telephone merger, the Cap Reit/Res Reit merger, the acquisition of Weldwood Canada by West Fraser Timber, Sobeys' acquisition of the Oshawa Group, Manulife's bid for Canada Life and Rogers Communications' bid for Videotron.
Prior to 1998, Bill was an editor of
Canadian Securities Law Precedents and
Canadian Corporation Precedents. In addition, he served as an assistant to the authors of the Report to the Ontario Securities Commission of the Committee to Review the Provisions of the Securities Act (Ontario) relating to Take-Over Bids and Issuer Bids from 1982-1983. He has spoken and delivered papers at numerous conferences relating to mergers and acquisitions.
Bill is recognized as a leading lawyer in M&A and Corporate Finance in The 2008 Lexpert/American Lawyer Media
Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada and in the
Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory. Bill is also listed in the corporate/M&A category of Chambers Global's
The World's Leading Lawyers for Business 2008 and is recognized in the 2008 edition of
The Best Lawyers in Canada in the specialties of corporate law and M&A. He is ranked as a leading lawyer in International Financial Law Review's M&A category for 2008 and has achieved Martindale-Hubbell's highest rating. Bill is included in The BTI Consulting Group's 2008 Client Service All-Star Team for Corporate Transactions, recognizing superior client service in corporate M&A.
Bill received a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto in 1974 and his LL.B. from the University of Toronto in 1977.
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