October 6, 2008
 
Toronto 

416.863.5526 (Direct Line)
416.863.0871 (Fax)

mconnelly@dwpv.com

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Mark Q. Connelly
 
 
Mark Connelly is a partner focusing on corporate financial transactions for Canadian and U.S. clients, including public offerings and private placements of equity and debt securities and derivative products, public and private mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, bank financings and project finance.

Mark has acted as senior counsel to several of Canada's largest companies on their most complex transactions.  He has a particular expertise in drafting complex contractual agreements and leading one-on-one negotiations on behalf of clients.  He focuses on understanding the business objectives of the client and managing the transactional work to meet these business objectives. Mark played a principal role in Onex's bid for Air Canada, developing the complex commercial agreements between the principals of the bidding entity.  He was the principal lawyer for Premdor Inc. in its 2001 acquisition of Masonite Corporation from International Paper, leading those negotiations and the negotiations for a series of business acquisitions by what became Masonite International Corporation. He had a leading role for Masonite in its acquisition by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.  Other significant matters in which Mark has played a leadership role include the design and execution of two Canadian chartered banks' credit card securitization programs; representing BCE in its spin-off of Nortel Networks, where he acted as the principal senior working lawyer; and representing the Board of Directors of Pacifica Papers in the contested acquisition of Pacifica by Norske Skog.Most recently, Mark worked on the high yield bond financing for Alimentation Couche-Tard's acquisition of Circle K, represented a European consortium of equipment financiers in the insolvency of Air Canada and subsequent aircraft lease financings and acted for Brascan on the equity financing for its purchase of the Weyerhauser British Columbia timber rights.

Between 2001–2002, Mark worked in the firm's New York office (he is admitted to practice in New York as well as Ontario) in a leadership and administrative capacity.  He has spoken and published widely on various subjects relating to corporate law.  He is the co-author (with Siobhan Monaghan) of the chapter on Canada in International Stock Plans: The Practitioner's Guide, published by Bowne Inc. He was a principal speaker at the 2002 annual Seminar for Québec Lawyers Specializing in Securities.

Mark obtained a B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1966, attended the Universidad de San Augustin (Arequipa, Peru) in 1966-67 as a Fulbright Scholar and obtained a J.D. (cum laude) from the Columbia University School of Law in 1970. He clerked for the Hon. Justice William B. Bryant (Dist. Col.) in 1970-71 and practised law with the Office of the General Counsel of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission from 1972-74. He was Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School from 1974 through to 1983. Mark became a partner in 1986.


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