Bill Ainley is a senior partner practising in the mergers and acquisitions and securities law areas and a member of the firm's Management Committee.

Bill has acted as lead counsel for bidders and target boards in numerous solicited and unsolicited public take-overs and merger and acquisition transactions, including representing BCE Inc. in its announced $51.7 billion sale to Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, Providence Equity Partners and others; Xstrata in its unsolicited $24.1 billion acquisition of Falconbridge and its agreed take-over bid for LionOre Mining International; Reuters plc in its dual listed company merger with Thomson Corp.; Onex Corp. in its bids for Air Canada and Canadian Airlines and its bid for John Labatt Limited and Osprey Media in its public auction process including the supported take-over bid by Quebecor Inc.  He has also acted as lead counsel in a wide variety of private equity and leveraged acquisitions, including Ontario Teachers' acquisitions of CFM Corporation and Alumina Specialty Chemicals, Osprey Media's acquisitions of community newspaper portfolios from Hollinger, CanWest Global Communications and Torstar Corp. and Thomas H Lee Partners' acquisition of Nu-Gro Corporation and Progressive Moulded Products.

Bill also practises extensively in the corporate governance area and has acted for independent and special committees of a number of public corporations in special mandates, including the independent directors of Hollinger Inc., BPO Properties Inc., Clarke Inc., Intier Inc. and Western Forest Products Inc.

Bill was seconded in 1984 to the Ontario Securities Commission as legal advisor to the Chairman. While at the Commission, he was primarily involved in the legislative reforms that created the current take-over and issuer bid rules in Ontario and opened up the ownership rules for the securities industry in Ontario. In 1986, Bill was invited to join the Securities Advisory Committee to the Ontario Securities Commission and served as Chairman of that committee in 1989 and 1990.

Bill is a member of the Editorial Board of Carswell's Canadian Corporate Precedents and Canadian Securities Law Precedents and has delivered numerous papers at securities law, mergers and acquisitions and project finance conferences.

Bill is published as highly recommended PLC Which Lawyer? in the practice area of private equity and venture capitalism.  Bill is also recognized annually as a most frequently recommended corporate commercial, corporate finance and mergers & acquisitions practitioner in the Canadian Legal LEXPERT Directory and was recently included among Canada's 100 Most Creative Lawyers by LEXPERT.  He is repeatedly included in the LEXPERT/American Lawyer's Media Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada and Euromoney's Guide to the World's Leading Mergers & Acquisitions Lawyers and Guide to the World's Leading Capital Markets Lawyers. As well, Bill has been recommended annually in Chambers Global's The World's Leading Lawyers where he is cited as a leading individual in Canadian Corporate/M&A law.  He is noted as a leading lawyer in IFLR 1000's The Guide to the World's Leading Financial Law Firms and  Lexpert Guide to the Leading Cross-Border Corporate Lawyers in Canada, in PLC's Cross Border M&A Handbook and corporate/M&A rankings for Canada, and in PLC Which Lawyer? in the areas of corporate/M&A, and corporate governance.  He is also cited as a leading lawyer and a recommended lawyer in Global Counsel Handbooks' Private Equity Handbook.

Bill was educated at Cambridge University where he received his B.A. in 1976, his LL.B. in 1977 and his M.A. in 1980 and at McGill University where he received an LL.B. and B.C.L. in 1979. He became a partner of the firm in 1983.

Top of Page