Mayer Brown issued the following announcement on June 23.
Mayer Brown advised on a transaction recognized as the “Deal of the Year” in the Airfinance Journal Awards 2020.
The winning transaction is:
Overall Deal of the year: United Airlines | Mileage Plus Programme | 07-20 | $6.8bn
Mayer Brown advised Goldman Sachs Lending Partners LLC, as sole structuring agent and lead left arranger and bookrunner, and Goldman Sachs Bank, as administrative agent, on a first-of-its-kind $6.8 billion financing consisting of $3.8 billion of senior secured high yield bonds and $3 billion of senior secured institutional term loans to United Airline's loyalty program, MileagePlus. The innovative transaction involved the contribution of intellectual property of the MileagePlus program to a newly formed subsidiary that was structured to be bankruptcy remote and involved a covenant structure that is a hybrid between a securitization and a corporate debt issuance.
The team was led by: Banking & Finance – partner Gabriela Sakamoto (DC), partners Stuart Litwin, Jan Stewart and Beth Vogel and counsel Jennifer Bruni (all Chicago), and partner Adam Wolk (NY); Restructuring – partner Sean Scott and counsel Richard Ziegler; Corporate & Securities – partner John Berkery (NY) and associate John Ablan (Chicago); Tax Transactions & Consulting – partner Michael Lebovitz (LA); and IP – partner Erick Palmer (Chicago).
Original source can be found here.