Pinsents, Skadden and Travers touch down on £1.4bn Skyscanner sale
Trio of firms advise on Chinese buyout of flight price comparison site
November 24, 2016 at 05:45 AM
2 minute read
Pinsent Masons, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and Travers Smith are advising on the £1.4bn sale of travel price comparison website Skyscanner to CTrip, China's largest travel agency.
Ctrip will acquire a 100% interest in Edinburgh-based Skyscanner, which has 60 million monthly active users and is available in more than 30 languages.
Shanghai-based Ctrip, one of the largest travel sites in China, also owns eLong, a mobile-based online travel booking service, and with tech company Baidu jointly holds a controlling stake in main competitor Qunar, after a $3.4bn (£2.7bn) share swap.
Ctrip said Skyscanner will continue to operate independently and its current management team will remain when the deal closes by the end of the year.
Pinsents is acting for Skyscanner with a team led by Glasgow-based corporate finance head Rosalie Chadwick and Edinburgh corporate finance partner Alan Diamond.
The Skyscanner legal team is being led by chief legal officer Carolyn Jameson (pictured) and senior legal counsel Graeme Barron.
Skadden is acting as lead adviser for Ctrip, with Travers providing advice on employee incentives issues.
The Skadden team includes corporate partners John Adebiyi in London and Julie Gao and Haiping Li in Hong Kong; banking partner Mark Darley, tax partner Alex Jupp and compliance partner Elizabeth Robertson in London; intellectual property partner Bruce Goldner in New York; and antitrust partner Fred Depoortere.
Travers employee incentives head Mahesh Varia is the firm's lead partner on the deal.
Pinsents has a longstanding relationship with Skyscanner, which was established in 2001 to help travellers compare prices on flights, accommodation and car hire worldwide.
Other recent corporate deals for Pinsents include advising Indian conglomerate Nirma's acquisition of LafargeHolcim's India business for $1.4bn (£1.05bn), and acting for US cinema company AMC on its acquisition of European cinema chain Odeon and UCI for $1bn (£800m), from private equity firm Terra Firma.
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