SMFL LCI Helicopters, a helicopter leasing joint venture between LCI and Sumitomo Mitsui Finance & Leasing (SMFL), has entered into an agreement to purchase Macquarie Asset Management's helicopter leasing business Macquarie Rotorcraft on March 10, 2025.
“When SMFL acquired a 35% stake in LCI in 2023, we talked about a $1.5bn capex spend,” said LCI's CEO Jaspal Jandu said in an interview with Airline Economics. “With this acquisition as well as our natural organic growth, we've actually achieved that already."
Macquarie Rotorcraft has a fleet of around 120 leased aircraft that operate, bringing SMFL LCI's number of owned, managed, and on order fleet to around 310 aircraft.
The acquisition will add six new aircraft types to LCI, 21 new customers, and 14 countries of operation, Jandu said.
“We will match our fleet to match the market,” said Jandu. “We'll be very responsible, responsive, and disciplined to future fleet growth.”
Jandu said a key driver behind the transaction was one, the “tremendous requirement” for helicopter deliveries and capacity over the next 20 years. Airbus Helicopters predicted demand for over 16,000 new helicopters by 2041, with a combined value of nearly $130bn.
He added: “Our larger operators are coming to us with more complex, more involved, larger, and more global deals. It really requires a full service leasing platform to meet those requirements… the synergies of combining with the third largest leasing company is quite great.”
While the helicopter market is a different dynamic from the commercial airplane market, helicopters have similar been impacted by supply chain issues from the OEM side, coupled with a tighter secondary market. As a result, there is an undersupply of helicopters relative to demand. “It's not uncommon for companies to come to us with requirements [for helicopters] in 2028 and 2029… more complex requirements are driving more complex answers.”
The transaction is expected to close sometime this year. The company said it could not disclose further details, but Jandu said it will aim to close the deal as soon as possible.