Maples Group Advises United Airlines on US$6.8 Billion Financing Plan

Maples and Calder, the Maples Group's law firm, is pleased to have advised United MileagePlus, United Airlines' loyalty programme, on the Cayman Islands legal aspects of both its recent US$3.8 billion bond offering and its concurrent US$3 billion term loan which closed on 2 July 2020.

Asset finance Partner, Sherice Arman led a multi-disciplinary team of lawyers from the firm's corporate, finance, IP, data protection and trusts practices on this transaction. Cayman Islands based-Partners Abraham Thoppil, Tim Dawson and Finn O'Hegarty, and Of Counsel Shari Howell, Nick Herrod and Maxine Bodden, acted as Cayman Islands legal advisers. 

The sizeable bond offering and loan facility will be used to refinance United Airline's existing bridge facility and provide working capital and liquidity for the United Airlines group.

Maples and Calder worked closely alongside Kirkland & Ellis who advised United MileagePlus on US legal matters, while Mayer Brown acted as US counsel to the lead arranger, Goldman Sachs.

"We were delighted to advise on this unique structure that has enabled United Airlines to borrow against its loyalty card programme Mileage Plus and boost the airline's finances. This is a challenging time for the aviation industry and this cash injection will support and benefit the airline in the long term," commented Sherice Arman.

"The Maples Group's global aviation team has distinguished capabilities and expertise in the aviation industry, advising clients on multi-jurisdictional transactions. In this matter, our aircraft finance team leveraged our deep bench of banking and finance, corporate, intellectual property, data protection and trusts specialists to assemble a market-leading team with the expertise to successfully close this transaction." said Scott Macdonald, partner and the firm's Global Head of Finance.