During the second quarter of 2018, Avolon reports that it now has an owned and managed fleet of 562 aircraft, with total orders and commitments for 328 new technology aircraft. The leasing company delivered a total of 13 aircraft, including eight transitions, and sold 41 aircraft during the quarter; 28 were sold to the Sapphire Aviation Finance securitization vehicle.
The average age of aircraft sold in Q2 was 13.2 years with average lease term remaining of 4.0 years. Avolon executed a total of 50 lease transactions, comprising new aircraft leases, second leases and lease extensions. Its fleet utilization for the quarter was 99.7%. Its average owned fleet age of 5.2 years with average lease term remaining of 6.6 years at the end of Q2.
During the reporting period, Avolon extended, repriced and partially repaid US$5.0 billion TLB-2. This facility was extended from an original maturity of April 2022 to January 2025 and was repriced at LIBOR plus 2.00% with a LIBOR floor of 0.75%. The lessor also upsized unsecured revolving credit facility by 37% to $1.44 billion and extended maturity to July 2022, with the addition of one new lender, bringing total revolving debt facilities, at 30 June 2018, to US$3.4 billion with availability periods out to a minimum of 2021.
In June, Avolon established an asset management platform (Jade Aviation), with China Cinda Asset Management, which will be the majority shareholder in the new platform with an 80% share, with Avolon holding the remaining 20%. Avolon, as asset manager, will be the exclusive provider of aircraft to Jade Aviation and Cinda will provide the debt financing for the vehicle. Jade Aviation has contracted to acquire a seed portfolio of seven aircraft, sourced from Avolon’s delivered portfolio.