Irish-based lessor Lease Corporation International (LCI) has begun rebuilding its fleet after selling almost its entire portfolio late last year.
LCI chief executive Crispin Maunder says it has completed one single aircraft transaction, will soon be completing the purchase of four new aircraft and is now negotiating several other transactions involving used aircraft.
LCI in November sold 20 aircraft worth about $1.1 billion to fast-growing Australia-based lessor Global Aviation Asset Management (GAAM). The deal left LCI with a portfolio of only two aircraft.
Maunder says LCI now has a fleet of three aircraft worth about $160 million because in late December it acquired a Boeing 747-400 freighter. The identity or lessee of this aircraft has not yet been disclosed.
He adds LCI will soon complete a deal for four new widebody aircraft valued at $750 million that will be delivered in 2009 and 2010. Maunder declines to disclose the type of aircraft or which airline and manufacturer is involved in the three-way deal. But he says the deal will be announced by the manufacturer in February or March.
LCI, Maunder says, is also negotiating several acquisitions of used aircraft which are collectively worth $200 million. These transactions include a mix of straight acquisitions and sale and leasebacks.
All the deals will give LCI a $1.1 billion portfolio by the end of 2010, when the last of four new widebody aircraft are delivered. LCI had a $1.2 billion portfolio before the sale of 20 aircraft to GAAM and Maunder says eventually LCI hopes to again reach and perhaps exceed the $1.2 billion figure.
But he adds LCI, which was the world’s 17th largest leasing company prior to the GAAM deal, has no aspirations to become a very big leasing company. LCI before the GAAM deal was the largest privately owned leasing company and is “not in it for the status”, Maunder says.
LCI is also not interested in speculative orders and will only commit to aircraft that will be delivered within the next couple of years.
“We’re very small and very nimble,” Maunder says.
LCI wants to stick with young aircraft and long-term leases to “good credit airlines”. Before the sale to GAAM its fleet had an average age of only three years with major carriers as its customers, including Air France, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways.
LCI could have used the opportunity of the GAAM sale to exit the market altogether.
But Maunder says “we still are comfortable with the market and feel there are opportunities”.
He adds LCI was actually not planning to sell such a large portion of its fleet but got an unsolicited offer that was to good to pass up given now is perhaps the peak of the market.
“We weren’t trying to sell it, but we started to get approaches from a number of lessors,” he says.
Source: Commercial Aviation Online, flightglobal.com's sister premium news site
Source: FlightGlobal.com
