Rani Awad

SHAWN VICK| INTERVIEW
strong sales opportunities, Vick says. Africa,
too, has potential. Vick points out that Global
Jet Capital recently signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with the African Business
Aviation Association (AfBAA), in terms of which
the company becomes a preferred provider of
fi nancing solutions for AfBAA members looking
to fi nance the purchase of private jets. The
fi nancing that Vick and his team could make
available to purchasers in Africa could well
have a signifi cant impact on private aviation
across a number of African states.
“One of the defi ning features of our market
is that the tremendous burden of oversight and
compliance, along with the capital charges imposed
by the regulatory regime on traditional
banks, has made them take a step back from various
forms of lending, including aircraft fi nancing.
That reality has created ideal conditions for us,
and added to this is the fact that we have a small
and highly agile team, able to pursue deals on
every continent. Plus, unlike the banks, we have
an investment committee that is solely focused
on this particular line of business so we can make
decisions very rapidly,” he explains.
A typical deal would be where a buyer has
purchased a pre-owned aircraft that is now just
six months away from being delivered and is in
pre-purchase. The buyer’s need for acquisition fi -
nance has now crystalised and they want a rapid
decision. “Provided we get the information we
require on the asset and the creditworthiness
of the buyer, we can evaluate both sets of information
and have a decision for the buyer in
less than 10 days. Plus, we can fund the deal
after signing within 10 to 15 days,” Vick says.
That kind of speed on big ticket asset fi nancing
puts Global Jet Capital in a unique position to
win business.
“A key part of this process is to get a face-toface
meeting with the principal and his/her advisors
as fast as possible. That is the surest way to
understand their requirements,” Vick adds. Sometimes
the need is for progress payment fi nancing.
Or the client might be buying an interim
pre-owned aircraft, having placed an order for a
new jet that will not be ready for delivery for four
to fi ve years, and therefore requires fi nancing for
the ‘stepping-stone’ aircraft that is going to get
them to that new jet.
The availability of fi nance from an active
provider is also a huge boost to OEMs. “It
means that they can sell a pre-owned aircraft
today, for which we provide operating lease fi -
nancing and secure the order for a new jet in
their pipeline, knowing that we have agreed
the future funding requirement with the owner,
subject to them meeting our credit requirements
when that payment becomes due,” he
notes. That line of reasoning is highly attractive
to OEMs and Vick and his team have already
had some very fruitful discussions with
OEMs. “This whole process of dealing with the
OEMs is greatly facilitated by the fact that a
number of my team have had years working for
OEMs. I have been involved in managing the
front end of the business for three OEMs, so
as a team we really understand the process of
introducing active buyers – along with the absolute
requirement for confi dentiality throughout
the negotiations,” he notes.
“The process starts with detailed support
for our fi eld team when an information request
about fi nancing is initiated, and no one outside
that sales relationship needs to know about the
prospective sale. If the project is of interest and
looks as if it will meet our criteria, we move forward
at a pace that seeks to match any urgency
in the buyer’s requirements,” Vick comments.
Given that the buyers of mid- to large-size
private jets are, by defi nition, very wealthy individuals
or large corporations, it might be thought
that many prospective purchasers would want to
fund the purchase out of their own pocket or, in
the case of corporations, off their own balance
sheets. However, Vick points out that buyers are
highly sophisticated when it comes to fi nance.
They know that they can secure funding at highly
competitive rates, well below the level that they
could earn on those millions of dollars if they
put that money to work in their businesses or
through investments, instead of sinking it all into
an aircraft. “The reality is that all these aircraft in
the $40 million to $60 million range are bought
on fi nancing and we intend to make sure that we
get our fair share of that business,” he says.
Provided we get the information
we require on the asset and the
creditworthiness of the buyer,
we can evaluate both sets of
information and have a decision for
the buyer in less than 10 days
Shawn Vick
Autumn 2015 | International 59