Deal: Trilegal acted as the sole transactional advisor for first round investment in Akasa Air from a group of investors led by Rakesh Jhunjhunwala (RARE Enterprises)

SNV Aviation Private Limited (Akasa Air) is in the process of commencing operations as an airline in India and has received a no-objection certificate from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Akasa Air is expected to begin operations in 2022.

Trilegal acted as the sole transactional advisor on this deal. The scope of work included, transaction structuring, due diligence, and negotiation and finalisation of the definitive documents executed between inter alia SNV Aviation, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala (the Lead Investor), Vinay Dube (the Founder) and Par Capital (US-based PE Investor).

This is a landmark deal in the aviation space – a largely under-penetrated sector in India with complex foreign exchange laws. Akasa Air is expected to be India’s 8th scheduled operational passenger airline.

Trilegal team was led by Sridhar Gorthi (Partner), Nishant Parikh (Partner), Kunal Chandra (Partner) with other partners including Shruti Rajan, Kunal Gupta and was assisted by Tanya Nanda, (Senior Associate), Kanishka Maggon (Senior Associate), Prashant Prakhar (Senior Associate), Kunal Paleja (Associate), Mayank Jain (Associate), Mansi Khandelwal (Associate) and Paridhi Khulbe (Associate). The team was also assisted by our Corporate Governance & Compliance team led by Rajesh Modani (Principal Consultant) and Monik Damania (Senior Consultant).