Wragge & Co's Corporate and Commercial teams have advised dnata on its acquisition of Gold Medal International Limited from the Thomas Cook group.

Gold Medal is a distributor and retailer of long-haul scheduled flights, hotels and car hire. Based in Preston, it employs approximately 470 people.

An integral part of the transaction involved Wragge & Co advising dnata on a new contractual network of supply and distribution agreements reflecting the Gold Medal group's continuing commercial relationships with Thomas Cook. The deal was completed within a challenging timetable of less than a week.

A team led by partner Stuart Young advised on the £45 million acquisition which provides the company with a platform for further expansion in the travel sector. dnata, a long standing client of Wragge & Co, is a division of the Dubai based Emirates Group.

Stuart Young said: "This transaction was completed in an extremely tight timeframe and highlighted the need for a pragmatic approach during the deal process. Our cross-firm team also worked with dnata to manage and negotiate the complex set of contractual agreements ensuring the framework was in place for 'business as usual' once the deal had been completed."

Working with Stuart Young were partners David Hamlett and David Lowe, associate Lara Wilding and solicitors Will Howard and Michael Gledhill from the Commercial, IT and Outsourcing team; associate Nicholas Crabtree, director Graham Spalding and solicitors Neil Hendron and Saffron Smith from the Corporate team, solicitor Nisha Lad in the Employment team and associate Patrick Allan provided tax advice. Specialists from the firm's Property, Pensions and IP teams also advised on the deal.

The Wragge & Co team worked closely with dnata, including Sarah Nimmo from the in-house legal team. Senior legal adviser Sarah Nimmo said: "The expertise, technical knowledge and commercial approach of the Wragge & Co team was invaluable. They understood our business needs and worked very closely with our team to achieve them in a very tight timescale. This deal threw up many complex challenges and Wragge & Co met them with enthusiasm and professionalism."

The Wragge & Co team also advised dnata's financial advisers, BDO. Latham & Watkins provided legal advice and Deloitte acted as financial advisers to Thomas Cook.

Wragge & Co's 15-partner Corporate, Banking and Finance practice delivers expert legal advice and commercial solutions on all corporate, private equity and leveraged transactions. Highlights include the sale of cloud services provider Intercept IT Limited.

The firm's Commercial, IT and Outsourcing (CITO) experts work closely with in-house teams across a wide range of sectors. The six-partner CITO practice provides advice in areas such as national and international service contracts, joint ventures, asset purchases and sales, partnering and alliance agreements, distribution and agency agreements, EMEA framework procurements and complex multi-jurisdictional contractual arrangements.