DEAL - CORPORATE - ACQUISITION - FINANCE - TAX

Luxembourg, December 2022 - Arendt & Medernach assisted Vinci Airports SAS (Vinci) in the context of an acquisition of a 29.99% stake (for a deal value of US$1.17 billion) in Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte, S.A.B. de C.V. (OMA) (Mexico), throughout which Vinci became the largest shareholder in this Mexican airport operator and has consolidated its position as world’s leading private airport operator by securing the concessions to operating 13 airports in Mexico.

In particular, Arendt & Medernach, with a multilingual team composed by experts from its Corporate & M&A, Finance & Capital Markets, and Tax practices, assisted Vinci Airports SAS in connection with the cross-border financing and acquisition of 29.99% of the share capital of OMA, owned by Aerodrome Infrastructure S.à r.l. (a Luxembourg entity) and Servicios de Tecnología Aeroportuaria, S.A. de C.V (Mexico).

Passenger traffic at OMA's airports has been above its COVID-19 crisis level since July 2022. Overall, for the first eleven months of the year 2022 - with 21 million passengers served across 170 destinations - it has reached 99% of its 2019 level.

This transaction has cemented Vinci Airports’ position as the world’s leading private operator in its sector and solidified its operation in the Americas, where it is already active in the United States, Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.

As the acquisition was financed through a mix of equity and secured debt, our professionals provided assistance with respect to all the relevant Luxembourg-related corporate and finance aspects of the transaction, including due diligence, negotiation of the acquisition documents, the review of the main financial documents and of the relevant Luxembourg security package. This transaction required the constant and seamless coordination of our teams with professionals from France, Luxembourg, Mexico and the United States as the cross-border and multi-jurisdiction component was extremely important for the successful closing of the deal.

Our Arendt experts involved:
- Corporate Law, Mergers & Acquisitions: Diane Amado, Associate, Fouzia Benyahia, Counsel, Sébastien Binard and Laurent Schummer, Partners, Fabio Vittore, Associate
- Finance & Capital Markets: Riccardo Caggia, Advisor, Tomás Jódar Cobo, Senior Associate and Grégory Minne, Partner
- Tax Law: Matthieu Le Bris, Associate and Vincent Mahler, Partner