Over the years, we have received multitudes of nominations for deal of the year, each with a different reason why the transaction was worthy of the award. None achieved the brevity or was as convincing as Erik Helberg's nomination of this year's winner in this category. He wrote simply: "Investors have made money on it."

Our job in assessing and analyzing transactions is made more difficult by being outside observers. A press release or a prospectus provides details, but not the flavor of sitting at the table and being part of the deal. We report the facts of the transaction, not how it evolved. Transactions are full of twists and turns, making negotiations both challenging and interesting. In nominating this transaction, Algoma's CFO Peter Winkley set the stage, delineated the challenges, and described the happy outcome all in great detail, along with his insights.

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Making quick use of its continued credit improvements and newly acquired senior secured rating of BBB- and BB corporate rating, Seaspan Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Atlas Corp. ("Atlas"), issued a private placement to qualified institutional buyers.

Export Credit Agency financing is also standard fare, done on strict OECD terms and conditions to ensure a level playing field among shipbuilding nations competing for newbuilding orders. There have been some innovations, including wrapping a commercial tranche around the ECA tranche to smooth out the repayment schedule and lower interest costs as well as the ability to replace a portion of the KEXIM loan with guaranteed notes but, for the most part, what the OECD allows is what you get.

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While we live by the philosophy that size does not matter, it is worth noting that despite the pandemic, well-known, seasoned issuers were able to raise substantial sums of capital in Oslo.

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