Norton Rose Fulbright has advised Abacus Holdings, a consortium of 11 Asian airlines, on its disposal of a 65% stake in Abacus International Pte Ltd to its joint venture partner Sabre Corporation, valuing Abacus at US$740 million.

The airlines comprised All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific, China Airlines, DragonAir, Malaysian Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Royal Brunei Airlines, Silkair, Singapore Airlines, Eva Air and Garuda Indonesia.

As part of the transaction, the airlines have agreed long-term distribution agreements with Abacus for mutual support after completion of the disposal.

Abacus is a leading global distribution system for travel and hospitality bookings in the Asia-Pacific region. Abacus will operate as a region of Sabre Travel Network.

Sabre also will continue its partnership to provide technology services to INFINI, a local Japanese global distribution system, which is jointly owned by Abacus Holdings and All Nippon Airways.

Rothschild are the financial advisers to the airline consortium.

The Hong Kong team has also advised Cathay Pacific Airways Limited and other shareholders on the disposal of their stake in Abacus Distribution Systems (Hong Kong) Limited, the distributor of the Abacus system in Hong Kong, to Sabre for approximately US$30m.

The Norton Rose Fulbright team was led by Hong Kong partner Jon Perry, assisted by Marina Sherer, Esther Yee, Champ Charernthamanont and Timothy Wood. Partner Marc Waha provided anti-trust regulatory advice assisted by Maxime Vanhollebeke.

Singapore partners Sheela Moorthy and K C Lye advised on Singapore law aspects of the deal, assisted by Zhi Ni Low. Tokyo partner Eiji Kobayashi provided assistance on Japanese aspects, assisted by Yui Ota.