Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

"Desmarais moved further to reshape Power by acquiring control of Canada Steamship Lines (csl). Here he used the reverse takeover with a twist: he sold a wholly owned subsidiary of Power, Provincial Transport, to CSL, a company in which Power already held a major stake (45.7 percent). The selling price was $17,820,000, of which $3.8 million was cash. The rest was enough csl shares to raise Power’s voting stake above 50 percent, giving Power majority control of CSL. Power also acquired majority control of The Investors Group in 1970 through share trades with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Com¬ merce and Canadian Pacific Investments, and purchases on the open market. By the end of 1970, Power held 50.2 percent of Investors voting shares directly, a further 13.2 percent indirectly through Im¬ perial Life, and a further 9.5 percent through Great West Life."

"At the end of April, Investors issued 3,000,000 voting common shares to the parties that provided $36 million of the financing for the Great-West share purchases: Power Corp., Canadian Pacific Investments, James Richardson & Sons, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the Royal Bank of Canada and Peter D. Curry (one of Power’s senior executives and a key Desmarais advisor). Then, in early May, Investors offered 1,600,000 cumulative redeemable convertible preferred shares at $25 each to raise the remainder of the financing costs. By the end of the transaction, Investors owned 50.1 percent of Great-West Life bought for $70.8 million (including costs). In turn, Investors issued stock worth $76 million to finance the acquisition and its costs. Also, 10 percent of Investors had been acquired by Great-West, one of the conditions of acceptance championed by Kil- gour, so that Great-West wouldn’t appear simply to have been ab¬ sorbed by Investors. And Desmarais, through Gelco’s control of Power, which had 30.1 percent of Investors, was in an influential position to guide Great-West Life in new, profitable directions."