China Aircraft Leasing Group Holdings Limited (CALC), the largest independent aircraft operating lessor in China, has entered into a strategic cooperation framework agreement with China Construction Bank Corporation, Shanghai Branch (CCB) on asset realization and debenture issuances, including sales of aircraft lease receivables for up to 15 aircraft, within a term of two years.
โThe Agreement with CCB will allow CALC to secure various privileged financing services from the professional team of the bank. In particular, CCB has expressed its interests in our dollar-denominated aircraft lease receivables realisation projects, and intends to adopt innovative and diversified product structures to facilitate us in reducing the overall financing costs of those products,โ said Ms. Winnie LIU, CALCโs Deputy CEO and Chief Commercial Officer. โAs Chinaโs pioneer in aircraft financing, CALC introduced and completed one of the nationโs first realization of lease receivables, demonstrating our innovation in business and financing. We completed realisation of lease receivables for two aircraft in 2015, and are seeing stronger demand for such products as yuan devaluation has boosted the demand for dollar-denominated fixed-income assets. Going forward, the Group will step up our efforts in capturing the opportunities in the aircraft securitization market.โ
โThe Agreement with CCB fosters a closer cooperation between us, further to the MOU weโve signed for RMB 4.4 billion of intent credit line in June 2015. Over the years, we have established our unique advantages in asset capitalisation and diversification of financing channels through realisation and financing agreements with different financial institutions. We will continue to develop other innovative financing methods actively, in order to stay financially flexible to support our continuous fleet expansion and further development in offering all-rounded aircraft solutions in the value chain,โ Ms. Liu continued.
CALCโs current portfolio consists of 65 current generation Airbus and Boeing aircraft with an average age of less than 4 years. It is estimated that the Group will expand its fleet to 172 aircraft by 2022. The Group is speeding up its international expansion plans while strengthening its cooperation with Chinese carriers, and targets to build a balanced portfolio of Chinese and non-Chinese airlines client by 2020.