Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and Latham & Watkins are among a raft of firms advising as Mubadala Capital, the asset management arm of Abu Dhabi’s state investment fund, takes Canadian asset manager CI Financial private in a $8.7bn all-cash deal. 

Skadden is repping CI on the deal alongside Canadian firm Stikeman Elliott, while Latham is acting for Mubadala alongside Blake Cassels & Graydon. Meantime, Toronto-based Wildeboer Dellelce is acting for the special committee of the board of directors of CI.  

The deal marks Mubadala’s largest acquisition to date, the Financial Times reported, and comes as it picks up the pace of its investments and prepares a deal push in North America. 

The transaction gives CI, which owns large wealth management operations in the US and had C$525.3bn in client assets as of 31 October, an equity value of C$4.7bn ($3.36bn), or an enterprise value of C$12.1bn ($8.66bn) including its debt. 

CI, which has seen its share price flatline in recent years as it grew large debts during a series of US-focused acquisitions, said the deal would support its expansion in the States.

Shares of CI jumped about 30% to hover around Mubadala’s offer price of C$32 per share on news of the deal, Reuters reported, which represents a 33% premium to the stock’s Friday close. 

The Skadden team acting for CI on the deal is led by M&A partners June Dipchand and Patrick Lewis and capital markets partner Ryan Dzierniejko, all based in New York, and cross-border M&A counsel John Zelenbaba, who works out of Toronto. 

Meantime at Stikeman Elliott corporate partner duo John Laffin and John Ciardullo are acting as counsel to CI. 

Latham’s team is led by Chicago-based corporate partners Jonny Solomon and Matthew Wynne and Dubai-based Chris Lester. Other core partners on the team included tax specialist Alan Kimball and employment and benefits duo Benjamin Rosemergy and Nineveh Alkhas, all based in Chicago, and Washington DC-based regulatory partner Jamie Lynn Walter. 

Mubadala also called in Latham when it took a 65% stake in Spanish IT consultancy Babel earlier this year. In the past 12 months it has also acquired a majority stake in high-end baby brand Bugaboo and US asset manager Fortress Investment Group, turning to Akin and legacy Shearman & Sterling respectively on those deals. 

The CI deal has been unanimously approved by its board and the special committee. The Wildeboer Dellelce team advising the special committee is led by corporate finance and M&A partners Perry Dellelce, Rob Wortzman and James Brown, all based in Toronto.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025, pending shareholder and court approval and regulatory clearances. 

CI will continue to operate with its current structure and management team and will be independent of Mubadala’s other portfolio businesses, the company said in a statement.