Allen & Overy and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are advising on Cheung Kong Investment’s agreement to acquire Britain’s Eversholt Rail for 2.5 billion pounds ($3.8 billion).
UK private equity fund 3i Infrastructure Plc said last week that it and Eversholt’s other investors had sold their entire holding to Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s Cheung Kong Investments, a joint venture between Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings and Cheung Kong Holdings.
Eversholt owns around 28 percent of the UK’s passenger trains, with 19 fleets. It is one of the UK’s three leading rail rolling stock companies.
3i, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, and STAR Capital Partners with its co-investor PGGM, acquired the business for 2.1 billion pounds from HSBC in 2010.
Allen & Overy is advising Cheung Kong Investment on the acquisition, led by partners Richard Evans in London and Bernardine Lam in Hong Kong.
Freshfields’ London corporate partners Richard Thexton and Claire Wills are representing the selling consortium on the deal, alongside tax partner Helen Lethaby, antitrust partner Alastair Chapman, employment partner David Pollard and Hong Kong-based corporate partner Simon Weller.
Eversholt had core earnings (EBITDA) of 263.2 million pounds in 2013, according to its website. The price of 2.5 billion pounds values Eversholt at about 9.5 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.
The deal is subject to the European Commission’s approval, and is expected to close this March.