Avolon has completed its inaugural Samurai loan facility, raising a total of $420 million equivalent of unsecured financing from a consortium of Japanese and international banks.
The dual tranche five-year facility includes $346 million and 11.7bn Japanese yen ($75 million), marking the largest and longest tenor debut Samurai issuance of a European issuer.
The deal is also Avolon's first non-USD borrowing.
A Samurai loan facility is a cross-border syndicated loan structured and distributed in the Japanese loan market.
“This inaugural Samurai facility further diversifies our capital base and expands our global banking relationships through the addition of new institutional lenders,” said Avolon CFO Ross O'Connor. “This transaction further demonstrates the strong global appetite for unsecured lending to aviation leasing companies and reflects confidence in Avolon's performance and growth outlook.”
Avolon said the financing attracted strong demand, and the 12-bank syndicate included nine new banking partners.
All participating lenders are Japanese banks or international banks with Tokyo branches, which was facilitated via the “unique access” provided by the Samurai loan structure. Additionally, this has allowed for further diversification of the lessor's sources of capital.
The transaction was arranged by MUFG. SMTB and DBJ acted as mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners. MUFG served as agent for the facility.
Including the Samurai facility and $1.5bn of senior unsecured notes announced last month, Avolon has raised $1.9bn in new unsecured facilities so far in the first quarter.