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Mireille Fontaine is a partner in Gowlings' Montréal office, specializing in the areas of private equity, venture capital and M&A and serves as a member of the Firm’s Corporate Finance and Mergers and Acquisitions, Private Equity and U.S. Initiative National Executive Committees. In the Montréal office, she is in charge of the office’s M&A group and a key member of the Firm's Montréal Office Business Development Management Committee, Life Sciences and Technology Leadership Industry Committees. Before joining Gowlings in February 2010 as a leader in M&A, Mireille was a partner at another leading national law firm in Canada for over twelve years.
Mireille’s practice focuses on corporate mergers, acquisitions and reorganizations in the private sector, including U.S./Canada cross-border and international transactions and distressed M&A, particularly in the life sciences and technology industries. She also has a wide range of expertise in investments and buyouts by venture capital corporations and PE funds as well as strategic players. Mireille represents a number of biotech and technology companies as well as various institutional venture capital investment firms and private equity funds in Canada, the U.S. and France.
She is extensively experienced in acting in the sale and acquisition of Canadian businesses by foreign companies and subsequently provides a full range of commercial law services to these clients on an on-going basis. Additionally, she is frequently retained to establish Canadian businesses for non-Canadians.
She is also very well known and acts frequently for important players in strategic alliances, joint ventures and limited partnership agreements.
- Advising private technology companies in the context of their financing, in debt and equity, by various important venture capital players;
- Mecachrome International Inc., acting for the dip lenders (ACE Management and Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec (F.T.Q.)) in a CCAA process (France - Canada);
- Sale of Virochem Pharma Inc. to Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Canada) Incorporated (Canada - US);
- Acquisition by Emergency Medical Services Corporation of the air ambulance business of Skyservice Business Aviation Inc. (US-Canada);
- Investment by ACE Management, a French private equity fund, in Maetta Sciences Inc. (France-Canada);
- Acquisition by Cellpoint Connect AB, a Swedish public company of Gennum Corporation’s Canadian business relating to consumer wireless headsets (Sweden-Canada);
- Acting in various exchangeable share structures.
- Co-author of an article entitled "The Canadian M&A Market 2011 Outlook Appear Positive" published in Lexpert 2011 Guide to Leading US/Canada Cross-Border Corporate Lawyers in Canada.
- Co-author of an article entitled “Prepare and package your business for a deal” published in the Fall 2010 issue of Bio Business Magazine.
- Speaker at Gowlings' conference on October 27, 2010 on "The Role of the In-House Counsel in Mergers and Acquisitions".
- Speaker on a Gowlings panel for FEI Canada in March 2010 on the “Acquisition of a distressed company”.
- Co-author of an article entitled “Business Corporations Act (Bill 63) – a major reform of Québec Corporate Law” published in Lexology in November 2009.
- Vice-chair of the study on Canadian Private M&A Trends published in 2008 through ABA.
- Speaker as part of a panel at the ABA in Vancouver, April 2009 on M&A Trends in Canada.
- Speaker at the “Women in M&A” event in Denver, Colorado in December 2008 on “Cross-Border deals from a Canadian perspective”.
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