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"The quality of work at Stikeman's is higher than most firms in Canada," observes one client, who has worked with the firm for a decade. "They just seem to have more heavy-weight lawyers." Another client says, "They keep me out of trouble, while still allowing me to be innovative."

Strikeman Elliott's corporate finance and securities offices are headed by Mihkel Voore in Toronto, Jean Marc Huot in Montreal, Christopher Nixon in Calgary and Neville McClure in Vancouver. Partner David Lefebvre left the firm's Calgary office in January 2011.

Many attorneys in Stikeman's securities group have previously worked for securities regulators, and senior partner Edward Waitzer is the former chair of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC).

Last year, Stikeman acted for the underwriters in the largest IPO in history - General Motors issuance of $23.1 billion in shares on both the New York and Toronto Stock Exchanges. The deal was significant because it was GM's return to the public markets after its bailout by the US and Canadian governments. The transaction closed in November 2010.

The team also worked on the largest IPO by a Canadian technology company in a decade, advising Intel in its $690 million offering, and secondary offering, of SMART Technologies, which closed in July 2010.

Stikeman Elliott was the first Canadian law firm to open offices in London, New York and Australia, and one of the few practices in Canada that has expertise in all four of the country's major financial centres - Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

In one of the largest deals of 2010, Stikeman Elliott served as Canadian counsel to the lender Morgan Stanley Senior Funding on a $2.7 billion secured acquisition financing to Walter Energy for a takeover bid of Western Coal. The strategic acquisition was made in response to the growing demand for coking coal from Chinese steelmakers.

In one of the largest refinancing transactions in Canada in 2010, Stikeman also advised Teck Resources on its amended and restated credit facilities and a subsequent bond issue. These transactions, for one of Canada's most prominent natural resource companies, began in 2009 and had an aggregate value of approximately $8 billion.

Over the past year, the firm has also advised on Basel III and Dodd-Frank compliance obligations for Canadian and international banks.

With offices around Canada and a presence in New York, London and Sydney, Stikeman Elliott is one of Canada's most internationally-orientated law firms.

"They go above and beyond the call of duty to come up with innovative solutions," reports one client of the M&A team, who notes that the firm is "very proactive in maintaining our relationship". William Brathwaite, a senior partner in the firm's Toronto office, has been consistently named by competitors as one of the top M&A attorneys in Canada. Partner Eric Bremermann joined Stikeman's M&A team in October 2010, and partner David Lefebvre left the firm's Calgary office in January 2011.

Among its high-profile deals last year, Stikeman represented the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, in its defence of BHP Billiton's $38.6 billion unsolicited take-over bid, which was withdrawn after being rejected in a historic decision under the Investment Canada Act.

In another high-profile deal, Stikeman acted for the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan on BCE's $3.2 billion acquisition of CTV globemedia from Teachers', The Woodbridge Company and Torstar Corporation, and the related $200 million acquisition by Woodbridge of the Globe & Mail assets from CTV globemedia.

Stikeman Elliott has been involved in many of Canada's most prominent project finance transactions over the past year. These include the first highway public-private partnership (PPP) financing in Ontario and one of the largest energy project financings in its history, the first PPP financing undertaken by the Government of Canada, the largest renewable energy project financing in the Maritimes and the first bank-bond and monoline-insured bond project financing transactions in the country. One client says the firm does "an excellent job" adding, "we can rely on them."

In a deal that closed in October 2010, Stikeman acted as lenders' counsel to the Spanish bank BBVA and Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO), a state-owned corporate entity attached to the Spanish government in regard to a $115 million credit facility provided to develop the largest wind farm in Nova Scotia, the Glen Dhu Wind Power project.

In the first PPP undertaken by the government of Canada, Stikeman acted for the lenders to the bidding consortium led by Bouygues, for the construction of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police E-Division headquarters, located in Surrey, British Columbia. Financing for the $182 million deal closed in May 2010.

Led by Sean Dunphy and David Byers in Toronto and Jean Fontaine in Montréal, Stikeman Elliott has acted on two of the biggest insolvency cases over the past year, Canwest and AbitibiBowater.

In the first of these, the firm represented the Court-appointed monitor for the publishing and broadcasting subsidiaries of one of Canada's largest media companies, Canwest Global Communications, in their restructurings under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA). The newspaper arm was subsequently sold to Postmedia Network for $1.1 billion and the broadcasting arm to Calgary's Shaw Communications for $2 billion in October and July 2010, respectively.

In the second, Stikeman acted for AbitibiBowater Group, a forest-industry giant which owns or operates 18 paper mills and 24 wood product facilities in Canada, the US and South Korea. The two-year global restructuring, under the CCAA in Canada, and Chapter 11 in the United States, included $1.4 billion in refinancing, and allowed AbitibiBowater to emerge as a viable company. It was completed in November 2010.