December.15.2015
A multijurisdictional Orrick team advised VINCI Airports, the VINCI Group’s airport subsidiary, in signing an agreement with investment fund Advent International to acquire Dominican airport company Aeropuertos Dominicanos Siglo XXI, SA (Aerodom). Aerodom has a concession contract with the Dominican government and the Airport Commission to operate six out of the nine airports on the island – the most visited tourist destination in the Caribbean with more than 5.1 million tourist arrivals in 2014 – until March 2030. The transaction and the transfer of operations are set to take place by the end of the first quarter of 2016.
With this acquisition, VINCI Airports will now operate 33 airports, including two Kansai airports in Japan, for which the VINCI Group’s airport subsidiary, in partnership with Orix, signed a preliminary agreement last November. The deal also illustrates VINCI’s development strategy of expansion in countries with strong growth potential, as the Dominican Republic has an average annual growth rate of 5 percent over the past 10 years and is considered an attractive economy for business.
“We have worked alongside VINCI Airports for many years now, and we are proud to have been able to advise them once more on this new project,” said energy and infrastructure partner Yves Lepage.
Yves led the Orrick team, which included energy and infrastructure partner Nicholas George and energy and infrastructure associate Laure Weymuller in Paris, and banking and finance partner Bill Haft and energy and infrastructure of counsel Aleksey Selipanov in New York.