year in review

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At the end of last year I wrote a published piece entitled “The Allure of Investing in Aviation”. A client asked me this week whether, a year later, I stood by what I’d written.

To answer that, you have to decide whether or not you think 2018 was a good year for the airline industry as a whole. There were many highs, but some telling lows as well. There can be no doubt that we are still in a ‘supercycle’ of sorts, but this has to be balanced against both macro and sectoral environmental conditions.

The expectations as we headed into 2018 were that profitability would improve over the year, with 56 per cent of airline CEOs in a positive mood[1]. However, this positivity has to be tempered by IATA’s adjustment of its own profit forecast from US$38.4 billion in December 2017 down to US$33.8 billion by June last year[2].

So what should investors be looking at? Is aviation still an attractive investment?Continue Reading Elusive, yet still alluring: What did 2018 show us about investment in aviation?

What a year it has been! At the start of 2017, Reed Smith had no aviation finance team. We have now established teams in London, New York and Abu Dhabi (and we’re not done yet!). Across the board we have structured and closed a diverse range of transactions for lenders, lessors and operators alike (and we still have one or two to go as we all race for the finishing line that is the Holidays).

Throughout, we have been grateful for the support of our clients who have stood by us during our respective moves, and we are excited to close the book on the first phase of our project as we move into 2018. The new year will see the continued development of our practice and will, we hope, give us the opportunity to form deeper partnerships with our existing clients as well as to establish new partnerships to support additional players in the aviation industry.

Establishing a new practice from scratch is inevitably somewhat turbulent for all involved and this got us thinking about the other turbulence and interruptions experienced on a sectoral basis by the industry this year. With this in mind, it seemed like a good moment for us to pause and take stock of 2017.
Continue Reading Farewell to 2017, and to the 747: An exciting year in review