Fasken advised Knowlton Development Corporation Inc. (“KDC”) and its shareholders in the sale of all of its issued and outstanding shares to a group of investors led by Cornell Capital LLC (“Cornell”), a private investment firm based in New York and Hong Kong.
KDC is a leading value-added partner to beauty, health and personal care brands, providing product innovation, research support, custom formulation, batch processing, assembly, packaging and quality assurance services for prestige beauty and health, specialty personal care and household products. Founded in Knowlton and headquartered in Longueuil, Quebec, KDC has experienced rapid growth through the successful completion of seven notable acquisitions in the United States over the past four years, and now employs approximately 4,800 employees out of 10 state-of-the-art facilities.
Fasken has long acted as corporate and M&A counsel to KDC and its shareholders, which include major institutional investors Novacap, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (“Caisse”), Fonds de solidarité FTQ, and Investissement Québec (“IQ”), among others. This sale constituted a major transaction in terms of both value and complexity, involving Canadian-U.S. cross-border issues, a number of regulatory matters including competition and antitrust compliance, and significant corporate restructuring. It also included a rollover by major shareholders Caisse and IQ, who retained a significant stake in KDC, as well as rollover investments by certain key members of the senior management team.
The Fasken team that represented KDC in this transaction was led by Michel Boislard and included Denis Chaurette, Caitlin Rose and Alexandra Lazar (M&A) as well as Martin Racicot and Marc Novello (Banking), Pierre-Olivier Charlebois, Jean-Philippe Therriault (Environment) and Jean-Philippe Mikus and Chloe Latulippe (Intellectual Property) and Huy Do and Chris Margison (Competition).
