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.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View All
Latham, Skadden Among Firms Acting on Mubadala's $3.4 B Acquisition of CI Financial
3 minute read
Latham, Jones Day and Wachtell Lead on Anglo American's $3.8B Coal Business Sale
2 minute read
Trending Stories
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250
