Bear Stearns Merchant Banking acquires majority stake in Alter Moneta

On January 29, 2007, Bear Stearns Merchant Banking (BSMB), a leading institutional private equity firm, completed its acquisition from National Bank of Canada and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) of a controlling interest in Alter Moneta, an equipment finance innovator headquartered in Montréal, Québec with over $1 billion in assets. Founded in 1998, Alter Moneta provides traditional equipment financing in the provinces of Québec and Ontario, and in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast United States. CDPQ has been a major shareholder of Alter Moneta since inception and will remain as one of the main shareholders within the new organization. As part of the acquisition process, Alter Moneta underwent a comprehensive reorganization of its corporate structure and amended and restated various credit and securitization agreements. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Alter Moneta was represented in Canada by Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP with a team comprised of Robert Paré, Louis Séguin, Diane Bertrand, Frédéric Boucher and Lévy Bazinet (corporate) and Gilles Carli (tax) on the acquisition portion of the transaction and a team comprised of David Lemieux, Félix Gutierrez, Andrew Klug, Jon Holmstrom and Thomas Meagher (financing) in connection with the financing and securitization amendments.