Air Lease in Joint Venture to Acquire $2B in Aircraft



Air Lease announced that a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company entered into a joint venture with a co-investment vehicle arranged by Napier Park Global Capital for the purpose of investing in commercial aircraft and leasing them to airlines around the globe.

The newly formed entity with committed equity and debt capital is named Blackbird Capital I and 90.5% of the equity is owned, through the JV Partner, by a pooled investment vehicle of long-term institutional investors managed by Napier Park. The company owns 9.5% of the joint venture and will not consolidate the entity.

The joint venture is expected to acquire total aircraft assets of approximately $2.0 billion by year-end 2016, with up to $500 million in equity and the remainder financed by a committed $750 million warehouse credit facility (which includes an accordion feature that could make the total facility up to $1.5 billion) and other forms of debt financing. ALC will provide management services over a 12 year period to the joint venture for a servicing fee based upon aircraft assets under management.

In addition, the company expects to sell aircraft from its portfolio to the joint venture with an aggregate value of approximately $500 million by year-end 2016. Through the joint venture, ALC will manage up to $2.0 billion of additional aircraft lease transactions to better serve the airline industry.

“We are excited to partner with Napier Park and its group of institutional investors because they share ALC’s vision of creating long-term value through leased aircraft assets,” said Steven F. Udvar-Hazy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Air Lease Corporation. “Blackbird Capital I is an important partnership for ALC’s strategy to grow our management business and serves as a model that can be replicated in the future.”


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