Three Magic Circle firms have closed the £2bn sale of London City Airport to a Canadian-led consortium of investors.
Linklaters, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Slaughter and May acted on the sale of the airport, located six miles from London’s financial district, which was completed late March after the Canadian consortium competed with two Chinese bidders.
Both Linklaters and Freshfields advised the Canadian-led consortium, which includes Alberta Investment Management Corporation, Borealis Infrastructure, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and Wren House Infrastructure Management.
Linklaters acted for the consortium on infrastructure matters with partner Ian Andrews taking the lead on the deal along with planning law partner David Watkins.
The Freshfields team was led by the co-head of the firm’s global energy and natural resources group, Laurie McFadden, with support from corporate partner Martin Nelson-Jones.
Slaughters advised Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) on its 75% interest in the airport. The multinational private equity firm acquired its interest through two successive transactions in 2006 and 2008.
Slaughters corporate partner Mark Horton, who has a focus on domestic and international corporate finance, led the firm’s team on the deal alongside finance partner Philip Snell and tax partner William Watson. Horton said: ‘With any auction sale the challenge is always in the preparatory phase. By the time you get the auction going you’ve got to have everything absolutely nailed down, all the due diligence done, all the reports done, recognise any issues that need sorting out and sort them out ahead of time. For the auction to run smoothly you can’t have unresolved issues; you can’t have areas that bidders are interested in that are not covered as then you’re on the back foot.’
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk