Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Travers Smith have advised Ctrip.com International Ltd, China's biggest online travel company, on its agreement to buy Scotland-based travel search website Skyscanner Holdings Ltd, represented by Pinsent Masons.
The deal values Skyscanner at about 1.4 billion pounds. ($1.74 billion), making it the largest corporate transaction in Scotland this year.
Skyscanner, a result of CEO and co-founder Gareth Williams' frustration with finding cheap flights, enables users to compare prices from different travel sites when searching for flights, hotels, and rental cars. It has over 60 million monthly active users with an annual turnover of $150 million.
The Pinsent Masons team was led by partners Alan Diamond and Rosalie Chadwick, while the Skadden team included corporate partners Julie Gao, Haiping Li and John Adebiyi, along with London partner Alex Jupp (tax) and Mark Darley (banking).