International Restructuring: Solving an Aircraft Finance Puzzle – “Flying is Easy; Landing is Hard”

How do you pay for planes and cover billions in debt when people stop flying and airlines are going broke? The global pandemic and economic slowdown have radically altered the financial landscape for airlines, aircraft manufacturers and leasing companies around the world. Our story today is about how Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC) – a leading aircraft lessor worth over $8 billion – navigated the sudden collapse in air traffic in 2020 with help from its creditors and an Irish court. Milbank Global Project, Energy & Infrastructure Finance partner Allan Marks, widely experienced in airport development and finance, sat down with partner and co-head of the firm’s London Transportation and Space Group James Cameron and London Financial Restructuring Group partner Karen McMaster, who represented the secured creditors in the NAC restructuring. They discuss how the creditor negotiations unfolded and the legal and commercial issues that led to an innovative Scheme of Arrangement under Irish Law affecting parties in the UK, the European Union, the US, Asia and elsewhere. The issues in this complicated case have broader implications for cross-border restructurings, aircraft finance, and the interplay between domestic and international law, including companies law, insolvency law, treaties for the enforcement of foreign judgments, and the Cape Town Convention. Buckle up, and mind that contents may have shifted in flight.

James Cameron is a top-ranked practitioner with extensive experience acting on a variety of asset leasing and financing transactions involving aircraft, ships, oil rigs, rolling stock and other movable equipment. Read More

As a partner in the firm’s Financial Restructuring Group, Karen McMaster assists buy side and distressed investors structure, negotiate and implement investments in distressed, stressed or special situation credits. Read More

Milbank Conversations host Allan Marks is a Milbank partner and one of the world's leading project finance lawyers, with special expertise in the power and renewable energy, transportation and airports, oil and gas, water, and telecommunications sectors. He advises developers, investors and

For more information and insights, follow us on social media and podcast platforms, including Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, Google and Audible.

Disclaimer