Berwin Leighton Paisner advises Ascent consortium - the preferred bidder in £6bn UK military flight training contract

Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) is the legal adviser to Ascent, the consortium of the VT Group and Lockheed Martin UK that has been selected as the preferred bidder to provide military flight training to the UK Armed Forces for the next 25 years.

The Ministry of Defence contract will cover training aircrew across the RAF, the Royal Navy and the Army Air Corps, including pilots for jets, helicopters and transport aircraft. The contract also includes work on weapons systems training, as well as other rear crew specialisations.

BLP has advised the consortium for a number of years, having been selected as a result of its strength within the defence industry and its expertise in PFI/PPP projects. Its team is led by head of finance Simon Allan and includes project finance partners Richard Lucas and Mark Richards, along with corporate partners Paul Mander and Adam Rose, and insurance partner Andrew Rose. In addition, associates Kiran Arora, Tina Beck, Kellie Hatton, Elizabeth Reid, and Jackie Thomas have played major roles.

Simon Allan said: “This is a huge, very exciting programme and we are obviously delighted for our clients. Not only will this programme provide us with some exciting work going forward, but we expect the approach will be considered by other countries around the world, so we hope our involvement in the successful bid will help open up other opportunities in the future. It also underlines the growing reputation of our Project Finance team, and our expertise in the Defence sector.”

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