At the end of last year I wrote a published piece entitled “The Allure of Investing in Aviation”. A client asked me this week whether, a year later, I stood by what I’d written. To answer that, you have to decide whether or not you think 2018 was a good year for the airline industry as a whole. There were many highs, but some telling lows as well. There can be no doubt…

In this blog post we take a brief look at export credit agency (“ECA”) supported finance in the asset finance industry, and the development of a new template loan agreement by the UK’s Loan Market Association. The role of the ECAs  ECA finance describes transactions where states (whether by direct sovereign bodies or by separately mandated organisations) provide (financial) support to would-be purchasers of certain goods or equipment constructed in that ECA’s home jurisdiction. ECA…

Summary In last week’s case of Triple 7 MSN 27251 Ltd v. Azman Air Services Ltd,[1] Azman Air Services argued that two aircraft lease agreements were void under the English law doctrine of common mistake. The High Court considered this question and found that common mistake is only sufficient to void a lease agreement (or any other contract) where: the mistaken assumption on which the parties acted was fundamental to the contract; and the…

The sale and leaseback (“SLB”) model has been a key source of funding and portfolio management for lessors and airlines alike for some time now. There are two principal SLB transaction structures employed for new aircraft, as illustrated below. The first is the “back to back” sale, whereby an airline pays for and takes delivery of an aircraft as the purchaser under the purchase agreement with the manufacturer. The airline will then simultaneously sell the…