On July 15, 2020 Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) announced its inaugural Additional Tier 1 (AT1) offering of Limited Recourse Capital Notes at $1.75 billion. This offering represents the first issuance of a new form of AT1 capital instrument using a novel structure pioneered by RBC and the Osler team led by Timothy Hughes and Rosalind Hunter.
The ground-breaking new instrument is expected to foster a more liquid global institutional AT1 market for Canadian financial institutions. The notes build on technology developed by Osler in an offering of Emera hybrid notes, which were the first of their kind to be issued by a Canadian corporation.
Osler has acted for the issuer on all AT1 offerings in Canada to date, including the US$500 million inaugural Additional Tier 1 note offering by BMO and the US$ 1.25 billion offering of Additional Tier 1 notes by The Bank of Nova Scotia, the first issuance of its kind.
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP represented Royal Bank of Canada with a team consisting of Timothy Hughes and Taylor Cao (Taxation), Rosalind Hunter, Jeremy Wu, Will Heisey and Deron Fung (Capital Markets), and Shelley Obal (Research).