Dubai's Emirates airline on Sunday, November 11 signed an $87-million finance agreement to acquire an Airbus A330-200, arranged by Credit Agricole Indosuez of France.
The financing, structured as a 12-year Japanese operating lease (JOL), will allow the company to take delivery on November 26 of the 19th of 27 Airbus A330-200s ordered in 1996, in 2000 and last week, an Emirates statement said.
The package is "arranged by Credit Agricole Indosuez and financed by using a combination of Japanese equity and commercial debt," it said. Three German banks -- Kreditanstalt Fuer Wiederaufbau, Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale and DGZ.Dekabank Deutsche Kommunalbank -- as well as Lloyds Bank TSB and the National Bank of Dubai are providing the commercial debt, it said.
The commercial debt is financed at "an attractive margin" of 0.75 percent over the six-month London Interbank Offered Rate on the green back. Emirates gave no details on the Japanese participation in the agreement.
Credit Agricole Indosuez last year arranged the acquisition by Emirates of three A330s under a JOL structure, a mode of financing that allows the buyer to benefit from the tax breaks offered by Japan to US and European imports. The Dubai government-owned carrier seeks to boost its fleet from the current 36 to 100 aircraft by the end of the decade, as part of the northern United Arab Emirates' efforts to become an air transport hub.
Emirates on November 4 ordered 33 planes from Airbus and 25 from Boeing, during the Dubai Air Show. It was the first big aircraft order since the September 11 terror attacks on the United States that plunged the industry in deep crisis. — (AFP, Dubai)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
