Royal Bank of Scotland's public sector and infrastructure finance group acted as sole arranger and underwriter for Manchester Airport's £241m (€390m) acquisition of East Midlands and Bournemouth airports from National Express Group.

Manchester Airport, which is now the second biggest airport operator in the UK, invested £107m in equity and raised £155m from RBS through senior and subordinated debt and working capital. The purchase was made through Crow Aerodromes, a special purpose company. Meanwhile, RBS has appointed Sam Ford, a 12-year veteran of NatWest/RBS, as global head of structuring, financial markets, in an effort to combine product-specific teams and improve its cross asset class structuring capability. He and a 22-strong global team will bring together foreign exchange, equity derivatives, interest rate derivatives, credit derivatives and fixed income. Ford will report to Stephan Harris, global head of foreign exchange, equity and FX derivatives, and John McCormick, global head of interest rate derivatives.