That said, a spate of announcements from the company in the past month is very supportive and I would expect the ongoing rally to continue as investors warm to the merits of the investment case. Indeed, having initially raised $100m (£66m) from an unsecured five-year loan note issue at the end of May 2015, Avation’s board is successfully deploying the proceeds to fund the acquisition of a total of 10 aircraft by the end of June 2016 in order to take the fleet to 39 planes.
For instance, less than a month ago, the company successfully completed the purchase of a four year-old Airbus A320-200 leased to Air France, so diversifying the airline customer base and executing its strategy of building the portfolio. This is the sixth A320-200 plane the company owns. And yesterday, Avation delivered the second new ATR 72-600 aircraft to Flybe, one of a series of five new planes to be progressively delivered to the airline during the course of 2015 and early 2016. The aircraft is in the livery of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and will be operated by Flybe for SAS under an operational contract arrangement called the "white label" project. The lease rate and terms are typical for leases of this type; the initial lease duration is six years and the client has options for extending the term. Avation is now the second largest ATR leasing company worldwide, in terms of firm orders, having taken delivery of 25 ATR 72-600 aircraft since 2011.