Air Lease Corporation (ALC) announced yesterday the results of its operations for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2011. ALC also announced the appointment of Gregory B. Willis as its new Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and certain other promotions. “ALC surpassed its fleet size goal by finishing the quarter with a fleet of 102 aircraft. As we have grown the fleet, we have also increased our profitability in four successive quarters posting our highest quarterly pre-tax profit margin of 33.6%. It
truly took a team effort to achieve these results in less than 2 full years of operation,” said Steven F. Udvar-Házy, Chairman and CEO of Air Lease Corporation. “ALC expanded its business during the fourth quarter of 2011 by increasing its fleet size by 29% and adding 6 more customers in 3 more countries. Additionally, ALC successfully broadened our capital base through capital markets transactions, additional banking relationships, and private placements. Our focus remains on building a strong balance sheet that will support the commercial success of our business,” said John L. Plueger, President and Chief Operating Officer of Air Lease Corporation.
During 2011 ALC raised an incremental $1.2 billion in debt financing. This balance was comprised of $587.6million in unsecured financing, which included $120.0 million in senior unsecured notes issued in a private placement to institutional investors and $200.0 million in convertible senior notes, ending the year with total unsecured debt outstanding
of $826.2 million. ALC increased its unsecured debt as a percentage of total debt from 14.6% at December 31, 2010 to 31.7% at December 31, 2011, while maintaining a composite cost of funds of 3.14% at December 31, 2011 compared to 3.32% at December 31, 2010. In the first quarter of 2012 the company entered into debt facilities and obtained financing commitments for $855million. This included eight unsecured debt facilities totalling $522.0 million, comprised of; $155.0 million in senior unsecured notes issued in a private placement to institutional investors; $200.0 million in short-term unsecured bridge financing from two members of our banking group in connection with the closing of four aircraft deliveries supported by the European Export Credit Agencies; $105.0 million in unsecured term financing and $62.0 million of seller financing. We will continue to place an emphasis on raising additional unsecured financing through the balance of 2012. As of December 31, 2011, we had established a diverse lending group consisting of 23 banks across four general types of lending facilities.