Mayer Brown advises on winning transaction named “North America Loan” deal in IFR Awards 2020

Mayer Brown advised on a transaction that won the “North America Loan” award in the Loan Awards category in the International Financing Review (IFR) Awards 2020. The annual awards recognize excellence in the capital markets industry. The winning transaction is:

North America Loan: United Airlines’ US$3bn secured term loan

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 MileagePlus Holdings, LLC, a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of United Airlines, Inc., with each of the loans and bonds secured by United Airlines’ loyalty program, MileagePlus and subject to a parent guarantee by United Airlines, Inc. and United Airlines, Holding Inc. and guarantees by certain other subsidiaries of United. Barclays and Morgan Stanley, together with Goldman Sachs, served as joint lead arrangers and bookrunners. The Mayer Brown team was led by Banking & Finance partners Stuart Litwin, Jan Stewart (both Chicago), Gabriela Sakamoto (DC) and Adam Wolk (NY).

According to IFR, the innovative transaction combined intellectual property of the airline loyalty programme and technology from structured finance and leveraged finance to achieve investment-grade ratings.

IFR is a leading provider of global capital markets intelligence. To read more about the awards, please visit the website.