Milbank Advises Fortress on Sale of Falko Regional Aircraft Limited to Chorus Aviation

Milbank LLP advised Fortress Investment Group LLC (“Fortress”) and certain of its managed funds on the sale to Chorus Aviation Inc. (“Chorus”) of Falko Regional Aircraft Limited (“Falko”), together with other asset owning entities managed by Falko, in a transaction valued at approximately US$855 million (including debt assumed). Brookfield has made an equity investment of US$374 million in Chorus in connection with the transaction.

Falko is a leading regional aircraft lessor and the sale involves 126 of its owned and/or managed regional aircraft.

Fortress is a leading, highly diversified global investment manager with approximately $54.2 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2021.

Chorus is a global provider of integrated regional aviation solutions. On completion of the transaction, Chorus will have a total of 353 owned, operated and managed regional aircraft.

Milbank advised Fortress on all corporate/M&A, anti-trust, tax and aircraft finance aspects of the transaction. The transaction is expected to close during the second quarter of 2022.

The Milbank team was led by partners Lisa O’Neill (Corporate M&A/Private Equity, London) and James Cameron (Transportation and Space, London) with associate Andrew Reilly and special counsel Siddharth Sharma, supported by partners Andrea Hamilton (Antitrust, London) and Andrew Walker (Tax, New York), Alan Rafferty (special counsel, Tax, London) and associates Kate Meils and Daniel Woods (Corporate M&A/Private Equity, London), Amy Bradley (Transportation and Space, London), Nils Bremer (Antitrust, Munich) and Michael Rivkin (Tax, New York).

Milbank corporate partner Lisa O’Neill said, “We are delighted to have supported Fortress and Falko on this market-leading transaction, which highlights both our strength in corporate M&A and aviation finance“. Transportation & Space partner James Cameron said “Milbank always acts on the aviation sector’s largest, most significant transactions and has unparalleled expertise in aviation M&A. Many congratulations to Fortress, Falko, Chorus and Brookfield.”