Burges Salmon has advised the Competition Commission on the corporate aspects of the sale of Stansted Airport for £1.5bn in cash. 

The sale to Manchester Airports Group was announced on 18 January 2013.  The sale price is 15.6 times 2012 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation and the transaction is expected to be completed by the end of February 2013.  

The firm provided corporate law and transaction-specific advice.  Its team was led by partner Nick Graves and included Julie Book (Corporate), Amy Watson (Outsourcing), Andrew Dunlop (Outsourcing) and Matthew O’Regan (Competition) who worked closely with the CC’s in-house legal team.

Heathrow (AH) Limited’s legal advisers were Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer while Slaughter and May acted for the purchaser.

Burges Salmon previously advised the Competition Commission the sale of Gatwick Airport for £1.51 billion in 2009 and Edinburgh Airport for £807.2 million in 2012. The sale of Stansted marks the completion of the three airport disposals which the Competition Commission ordered in its report into BAA’s ownership of seven UK airports in 2009.

Burges Salmon did not provide competition law advice, which was handled by the Competition Commission.

http://www.burges-salmon.com/Practices/corporate/News/10350.aspx