Goshawk Aviation Limited (“Goshawk”) has closed an issuance of USD$263 million secured notes sold to institutional investors in the US private placement market. Crédit Agricole acted as Sole Structuring Agent and Joint Placement Agent. The transaction comprises two classes of full recourse senior secured notes backed by six new aircraft leased to two US airlines.

The Class A bonds have a tenor of approximately 12 years and Class B bonds have a tenor of approximately 7 years. Commitments for the transaction were circled in early August with the final aircraft delivering and funding in November. Proceeds from the Notes were used to refinance or purchase the six aircraft.

Ruth Kelly, CEO of Goshawk, says “We were delighted to work with Credit Agricole on an innovative transaction with two key airline customers. It provides Goshawk with another diversified source of capital and included several new institutional investors.”

The other Joint Placement Agents were Citibank and HSBC. Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy acted as Goshawk’s legal counsel while Clifford Chance LLP acted as the investors’ legal counsel.

Goshawk was established in November 2013 as an aircraft leasing platform to focus on building an asset portfolio of young, new technology, in-production aircraft with a large and diversified asset-type and operator base. With support from its shareholders, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Limited and NWS Holdings Limited, the committed Goshawk portfolio has grown to 114 aircraft worth USD$5.6 billion.