October 1, 2021

Milbank Wins Banking Team of the Year, Debt Capital Markets Deal of the Year at IFLR1000 Canada and United States Awards

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Milbank LLP is pleased to announce that it was awarded “Team of the Year: Banking” and “Deal of the Year: Debt Capital Markets” at Euromoney’s IFLR1000 United States Awards 2021. Winners for the Canada and United States regional awards were announced at IFLR1000’s virtual ceremony on September 21, 2021, as well as at The Deal Awards held in New York City on September 23.

The awards celebrate the most innovative, complex and impactful domestic legal work undertaken in 2020, honoring the law firms, teams and individuals leading these transactions who innovate and excel in corporate dealmaking both locally and nationally. Now in its second year, the awards are the result of months of research based on hundreds of submissions, practitioner research calls, peer reviews and feedback from clients.

Milbank’s Global Leveraged Finance Group was honored as “Team of the Year: Banking” for its involvement in the most significant finance deals across the market. The banking team, comprised of practitioners covering key industries, from aviation to space and satellite, to healthcare, technology and telecommunications and chemicals, and more, brings comprehensive sector experience to banking and lender clients, advising on complicated loan and corporate lending deals, acquisition financing and refinancing transactions around the world. The group is known for providing unique solutions to complex domestic and cross-border deals through innovative structuring often involving coordination across global markets. Milbank’s leveraged finance partners are ranked as top banking practitioners and the group is consistently recognized as a leading firm in the area of banking by IFLR1000, Chambers Global, Chambers USA, Legal500, Refinitiv and Debtwire Par.

Milbank was honored for “Deal of the Year: Debt Capital Markets” for its representation of the lead underwriters, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Barclays, in connection with a $3.8 billion high-yield bond issuance and a $3 billion concurrent term loan facility by United Airlines MileagePlus. The deal involved an innovative financing structure that had never been implemented in the airline industry, securing the MileagePlus loan against the intellectual property of the loyalty program itself. MileagePlus raised the loan with a special purpose vehicle that was effectively bankruptcy-remote.

The Milbank team for the United Airlines deal was led by Finance practice chair and Transportation and Space practice group leader Drew S. Fine, Transportation and Space partner James V. Pascale, and Capital Markets partner Brett Nadritch, and included Financial Restructuring partners Gerard Uzzi and Nelly Almeida, Structured Credit partner Sean M. Solis and associate Brian Troxler.

Marcus J. Dougherty, partner and Head of Milbank’s US Leveraged Finance Group and Co-Leader of the firm’s Global Leveraged Finance Group commented, “We are delighted to have had the privilege to work alongside our banking clients, helping them navigate domestic and cross-border market trends on many successful closings over the past year, and we are grateful to be recognized by IFLR1000 for the innovative work our lawyers have been involved in on behalf of our clients.”

Drew Fine commented, “Our aviation team is pleased to have developed the innovative airline loyalty financing product in 2020 and worked on the largest airline financings in history and we are honored by IFLR1000’s recognition of the team’s work structuring this truly unique financing for United Airlines.”

IFLR1000 also shortlisted Milbank for “Deal of the Year: Banking” (Castlelake $180 million EETC); “Deal of the Year: Banking” (Elanco $5 billion financing); “Deal of the Year: Project Finance” (Highlander Solar 485MW solar power plant); and “Deal of the Year: Restructuring and Insolvency” (Windstream Holdings restructuring). Milbank attorneys were shortlisted for “Lawyer of the Year: Banking” (Drew Fine and Lauren Hanrahan); “Lawyers of the Year: Capital Markets: Debt” (Sean M. Solis); and “Lawyers of the Year: Project Finance” (Allan Marks). The firm was also shortlisted for “Teams of the Year: Project Finance.”