SunExpress, a joint venture of Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, was awarded the ‘European Debt Deal of the Year Award 2017’ at the Aviation 100 Awards, organized by Airline Economics.
SunExpress won this award through a readers’ survey, conducted annually by Airline Economics. Aviation 100 recognizes outstanding performers in the aerospace and financial industries.
Jens Bischof, Managing Director of SunExpress, commented: “We are very proud to receive this prestigious finance award since it demonstrates the extremely strong financial performance of SunExpress which is an important foundation in our asset intense industry.” He added, “This is our second Aviation 100 award; in 2016, SunExpress was granted ‘the Export Credit Deal of the Year’ award in the international arena with the French Tax Lease model transaction it executed for aircraft financing.
This year’s awarded financing transaction was earned with the three Boeing aircraft deliveries made between April-May 2017. The transaction was arranged by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and VTB Bank AG acted as Lender under the guarantee of the Italian official export credit agency SACE S.p.A.
This agreement is the first ever SACE guaranteed financing for Boeing aircraft. Besides, the deal was the first financing under a framework agreement between SACE and Boeing to provide up to $1.25 billion of guarantees for aircraft purchases. Additionally, the aircraft under the deal are the first Boeing aircraft ECA (Export Credit Agency) supported financing since US Ex-Im closed in July 2015. The deal is also the first non-US Ex-Im ECA financing for Boeing aircraft for over a decade.
SunExpress received the award at the ceremony held in London on December 7, 2017.
