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In this blog post we take a brief look at export credit agency (“ECA”) supported finance in the asset finance industry, and the development of a new template loan agreement by the UK’s Loan Market Association.

The role of the ECAs

 ECA finance describes transactions where states (whether by direct sovereign bodies or by separately mandated organisations) provide (financial) support to would-be purchasers of certain goods or equipment constructed in that ECA’s home jurisdiction.

ECA support can make deals both more bankable and more affordable, and has long been a useful feature of asset and project finance. Over the last two decades, a significant amount of export credit support in the form of both guarantees and insurance has been provided to capital-intensive global projects.

With the increased capital adequacy requirements of the Basel III and Basel IV accords, the importance of the sector has continued to grow. ECAs were once seen as insurers of “last resort” and were largely confined to support high risk financings in emerging markets, with much export credit agency insurance having been counter-cyclical. Whilst the perception remains that ECA support increases in importance as traditional financiers become more reluctant to lend (and so provides a bridge where the required debt finance exceeds the available bank liquidity) they just as often will now be found providing specialised products not available elsewhere, for example political risk insurance.Continue Reading An Introduction to ECA Finance

According to PWC research, half of the world’s workforce will be millennials (people born between 1980 and 1995) by 2020. It is also estimated that over the course of the ‘Great Wealth Transfer’ occurring over the coming 30 years, this generation will inherit wealth to the value of $30 trillion.

A lot of editorial ink has been spent on the analysis of millennials, especially on the ways in which their spending habits differ from those of previous generations (smashed avocado, anyone?). It has been reported that the particular context in which this cohort grew up – described by one columnist as ‘a series of moments when the big institutions failed to provide basic security, competence and accountability’ – has ‘fundamentally changed the game for Millennials’. They don’t buy houses in the way their predecessors did. They want access to cars, but not necessarily to own them, and would rather have a smartphone anyway. They are characterised by a ‘quirky eco-conscious individualism’. They want workplaces that offer flexible hours and feel like a community, and would rather keep their lives than work towards partnerships or corner offices.

Similarly, in recent months, we have seen a marked generational change in some of the lenders we work with. While some are determined to carry on as if the GFC never happened, others are looking at building brand new books with innovation and new technology at their core, even in more traditional fields like asset and equipment finance.

All of this has made us wonder. If millennial spending habits are so different from those of previous generations, why should their lending habits stay the same? What happens when the millennials are running those ‘big institutions’? Specifically, what will millennial asset finance look like?
Continue Reading The changing of the guard: Millennial asset finance

As we open our Advent Calendars each December, thoughts inevitably turn to Christmas, the New Year, and to what the next year will bring.

But this year we are also looking 12 months ahead to New Year 2019.

Why? Because January 2019 will see International Accounting Standard (IAS) 17 replaced by International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 16.

Now accounting standards may not be the most festive or exciting of topics, and to many of our readers that may sound like an insignificant change. Indeed the legislators themselves have said that it should cause “only minor changes from the current standards”. However, the general consensus is that in the aviation industry, the effects may be more profound.
Continue Reading An eye on the New Year