Sidley is representing funds advised by Wafra Inc. (“Wafra”) in the acquisition of Aquila Air Capital (“Aquila”) from funds managed by Warburg Pincus LLC. Aquila is a specialty finance platform focused on providing aviation asset financing, including purchasing and leasing aircraft engines. Wafra is a global alternative investment manager with approximately US$28 billion of assets under management across a range of alternative assets, including real assets, real estate, and strategic partnerships. The transaction with Wafra is expected to provide substantial capital to support Aquila’s continued growth, furthering its mandate to purchase, sell, finance, and lease aircraft, engines, and other aviation equipment.
The Sidley team is being led by Brien Wassner, Atman Shukla, Adrian Zhang (M&A and Private Equity), and Kelly Dybala (Global Finance). Additional team members include Courtney Luster, Isabella Russo-Tiesi, Adi Milstein, and law clerk Angela Chow (M&A and Private Equity); Bart J. Biggers (Transportation); Reid McKinney and Mimi Mallory (Global Finance); Eric Wolf and Amanda Casanueva (Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation); Christian Brause, Oliver Currall, Andy Lau, Joel Lifshitz, and Ellie Verran (Tax); Eric Hoffman (Labor, Employment and Immigration); Scott Goldstein (Insurance); Francesca Blythe, Alan Charles Raul, Stephen W. McInerney, Ben Cross, and Anila Rayani (Privacy and Cybersecurity); Mark Kaufmann and Andy Dykstra (Technology and Life Sciences Transactions); Vadim Brusser, Patrick Harrison, and Anna Kubinska (Antitrust and Competition); Jen Fernandez, Sven De Knop, James Mendenhall, Alessandra Moroni, and Kayla Scott (Global Arbitration, Trade and Advocacy); Maureen Crough and Sarah Jehl (Environmental); Alex Kaplan (Securities and Shareholder Litigation); and Craig Francis Dukin (White Collar Defense and Investigations).
