Simpson Thacher represented Royal Bank of Canada, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Bank and The Toronto-Dominion Bank as the lead banks in the financing for Precision Drilling Corporation’s acquisition of Grey Wolf, Inc., which closed on December 23, 2008.
Precision Drilling Corporation is the largest provider in Canada of oil and natural gas land drilling services, and Grey Wolf is a U.S. oil and gas drilling services provider headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Grey Wolf shareholders were permitted to elect cash or equity of Precision. The financing for the cash portion of the consideration and the refinancing of indebtedness included $800.0 million of senior secured term loans, a $400.0 million revolving credit facility and a $400.0 million unsecured bridge credit facility.
The Simpson Thacher team included (1) Jay Ptashek, Josh Koenig, Nicholas Rontiris and Nicholas Schwartz and paralegal Nicholas Dang (Senior Secured), (2) John Ericson, Juan Naveira, Brian Rosenzweig, Nicholas Feinberg and Carol Daniel and paralegals Andrew Laird and Mark Rapisarda (Bridge) and (3) specialists Jon Cantor, Jeffrey Graff and Jason Vollbracht (Tax); Tim Mulvihill and Noreen Lavan (Environmental); Greg Grogan and Nisha Jain (Employee Benefits); and Marcela Robledo and Ivan Rothman (IP).