In a tense and highly competitive auction that went right down to the wire, Clifford Chance advised US private equity house The Carlyle Group on its £1 billion leveraged buyout of the RAC from Aviva. Through late nights and intense pressure the team overcame the challenges of extracting a complex business from a publicly listed insurance group, tackling the issues around FSA regulation, stock market reporting and, at the same time, representing the banks that were financing the acquisition.