AZB & Partners, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas to pilot Vistara-Air India merger

Tata Sons Private Limited and Talace Private Limited (a 100% subsidiary of TATA Sons) have announced the merger of Vistara with Air India.

Vistara and Talace will be merged into Air India pursuant to a scheme of arrangement. The deal amount is valued at ₹90 billion (approx. US$1 billion).

As part of this scheme of arrangement, Singapore Airlines will also be issued additional shares in Air India on a preferential basis, towards an additional infusion of capital into Air India.

AZB & Partners advised Tata Sons and Talace in this deal.

The transaction team consisted of Managing Partner Zia Mody, Partner Divya Mundra and Associate Devika Nayak.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co acted for Singapore Airlines.

The transaction was led by Executive Chairman Shardul Shroff, Partners Nivedita Tiwari and Devesh Pandey, and Senior Associate Axay Satagopan.

Partners Amit Singhania and Gouri Puri advised on direct tax aspects. Partner Rajat Bose advised on indirect tax aspects.

Partner VR Neelakantan and Counsel Ankita Kumar advised on the aviation law aspects of the transaction.

Partners Naval Chopra and Rohan Arora, along with Principal Associate Ritwik Bhattacharya advised on the competition law aspects of the deal.

Partners Pooja Ramchandani and Kriti Kaushik, along with Associate Harshita Arora undertook the employment law aspects of the diligence. 

Partner Aashish Gupta advised on certain litigation aspects of the diligence.

Upon completion of this merger of Vistara with Air India, Singapore Airlines will hold approximately 25.1% of the enlarged Air India, for an investment of ₹2,058.5 crore.

The merger is expected to close by 2024.

If you would like your Deals, Columns, Press Releases to be published on Bar & Bench, please fill in the form available here.