Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy has advised Vietnamese low-cost airline VietJet on its agreement to buy at least 20 A321 passenger jets from France’s Airbus Group for $2.39 billion.
Milbank also advised the airline earlier this year when it signed a $11.3 billion order for 100 Boeing planes, marking the country’s largest-ever commercial aircraft order, and on a $3.04-billion deal for engines made by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies, for 30 Airbus A321 planes.
The Airbus deal, signed during French President François Hollande’s visit to Vietnam, combined with the Boeing deal signed during President Barack Obama’s visit to Vietnam, will add 120 new aircrafts to VietJet’s fleet, in all probability making it Vietnam’s largest airline and one of Southeast Asia’s largest low-cost carriers.
The Milbank team working on the deal was led by Paul Ng, head of the firm’s aviation and asset finance practice in Asia.