SKY Leasing (“SKY”), a dedicated aviation investment manager, and Wafra Inc. (“Wafra”), a global alternative investment manager, today announced a joint venture partnership between SKY’s managed funds and certain funds managed by Wafra.
The strategic partnership will seek to acquire a diversified aircraft leasing portfolio, targeting approximately $3 billion of investments in new and young next-generation aircraft on lease to leading airlines globally. SKY will act as manager and servicer of the joint venture’s assets.
The joint venture will invest in an initial portfolio of primarily new technology, narrowbody aircraft on long-term leases to leading airlines across North America, Europe, Asia and South America. The initial portfolio has an appraised value of approximately $900 million in asset value across 20 aircraft.
“The Wafra investment will expand our financing solutions, provide greater scale, and enhance value to our capital partners and airline customers globally. SKY continues to see strong demand from our airline customer base for new technology aircraft, which provide valuable cost savings to our airline partners,”
- Austin Wiley, Chief Executive Officer at SKY Leasing.
“We are pleased to expand our relationship with SKY through this partnership. SKY is an established aircraft lessor with decades of experience, deep industry relationships and a track record of success, We recognize the need for creative financing solutions to meet the growing demand of airline customers for next-generation technology. We look forward to working with SKY to build a portfolio of high-quality, in-demand assets.”
- Adel Alderbas, Chief Investment Officer of Wafra. Edward Tsai, Managing Director at Wafra
About SKY Leasing
SKY Leasing ("SKY") is a premier aircraft leasing asset manager with offices in Dublin, Ireland and San Francisco, California. It was founded in 2019, in partnership with M&G Investments which acquired a stake in the business. Since January 2020, SKY Leasing has executed $2.5B of aircraft transactions across its funds under management. As of February 2022, the portfolio has a weighted average age of 1.5 years and weighted average lease term remaining of 11 years. SKY’s corporate mission is to be a leading capital provider to airlines globally for sale and leaseback transactions.
About Wafra
Wafra is a global investment firm pursuing strategies across the spectrum of alternative investments, including real assets, infrastructure, private equity, real estate, strategic partnerships, liquid markets and venture capital. Wafra, together with its affiliates, manages assets of approximately $28 billion (estimated as of September 30, 2021). Wafra currently has more than 60 investment professionals out of its principal office in New York, and affiliated and associated offices in London, Bermuda and Kuwait.