Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA) was a
Commercial Aircraft Sales and Leasing
Aircraft leases are leases used by airlines and other aircraft operators. Airlines lease aircraft from other airlines or leasing companies for two main reasons: to operate aircraft without the financial burden of buying them, and to provide tempora ...
company set up in 1975 by
Aer Lingus, the
Guinness Peat Group (a London-based financial services company) and
Tony Ryan
Thomas Anthony Ryan (2 February 1936 – 3 October 2007) was an Irish billionaire, philanthropist and businessman who co-founded the Ryanair airline.
Through his establishment of Guinness Peat Aviation in 1975 he began a course of events which ...
, then an Aer Lingus executive.
History
GPA was based in
Shannon, Ireland. During the 1980s it became the world's largest commercial aircraft lessor and expanded its shareholding to include
Air Canada
Air Canada is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Canada by the size and passengers carried. Air Canada maintains its headquarters in the borough of Saint-Laurent, Montreal, Quebec. The airline, founded in 1937, provides scheduled an ...
, General Electric, Short Term Credit Bank of Japan and companies in the
Mitsubishi group. GPA also had financing joint ventures with key aircraft manufactures, including Airbus, Fokker and McDonnell Douglas. At its peak, the company was valued at $4 B. Net income reached $265 M in the year to 31 March 1992.
Former
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government, or prime minister, of Ireland. The office is appointed by the president of Ireland upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's national legislature) and the o ...
Garret FitzGerald, former British
chancellor of the exchequer Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, (born 11 March 1932) is a British Conservative Party politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974 to 1992, and served in the cabinet of Margaret ...
,
Peter Sutherland
Peter Denis Sutherland (25 April 1946 – 7 January 2018) was an Irish businessman, barrister and Fine Gael politician who served as UN Special Representative for International Migration from 2006 to 2017. He was known for serving in a variety ...
and the former Chairman of ICI, Sir John Harvey-Jones, were among GPA's non-executive directors.
Lawson joined the board of GPA in February 1990 but he also became chairman of GPA Financial, a subsidiary company.
In 1990, GPA stunned the aviation world by placing a $17 billion order for 700 new aircraft over the following decade. A new company, GPA Helicopters Ltd., was set up in June 1990 as a joint venture with
CHC Helicopter
CHC Helicopter is a Texas-based helicopter services company.
CHC Helicopter maintains it global headquarters in Irving, Texas and operates more than 250 aircraft in 30 countries around the world. CHC's major international operating units are b ...
to acquire, own and lease helicopters worldwide.
Downfall
The decision to float the company on the
stock market in 1992, during an aviation industry downturn following the
1991 Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases ...
, proved disastrous, as
international financial institutions refused to buy shares. Unable to raise the capital it needed to continue its ambitious operations, the company plunged into crisis, with some $10 billion in debts.
The story of GPA's downfall is told by Christopher Brown, aviation lawyer and GPA Senior Vice-President, in his 2009 book ''Crash Landing – An Inside Account of the Fall of GPA''. The book is a personal memoir of the history, background and run-in to the failed initial public offering (share flotation), GPA's subsequent financial collapse and later restructuring and involvement of GE Capital (GECAS). It is based on a contemporaneous diary of events kept by the author from 1990 to 1996 while employed by GPA and subsequently GECAS.
Restructuring
In a subsequent
restructuring
Restructuring is the corporate management term for the act of reorganizing the legal, ownership, operational, or other structures of a company for the purpose of making it more profitable, or better organized for its present needs. Other reasons ...
completed in November 1993, GPA avoided default on its debts by selling some of its aircraft to a subsidiary of
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...
, GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS), which also took over the operational management of GPA's fleet and most of GPA's technical and marketing staff.
GE Capital
GE Capital is the financial services division of General Electric.
The company currently only runs one division, GE Energy Financial Services. It had provided additional services in the past; however, those units were sold between 2013 and 2018. ...
also acquired an option to purchase 90% of GPA's ordinary shares at a low price. GPA used the cash from this transaction to repay all its unsecured debt. Chairman and chief executive Tony Ryan transferred to GECAS. He was replaced by Patrick Blaney as chief executive and by
Dennis Stevenson (later Lord Stevenson of Coddenham) as chairman.
GPA continued to own a substantial fleet and in March 1996 sold 229 aircraft for $4 B in what was at the time the second largest securitisation transaction ever. GPA used the cash from this sale to repay all of its secured debt and the company returned to profit in the year to 31 March 1996 with net income of $65 M.
GPA further consolidated its position in the years to 31 March 1997, 1998 and 1999, reporting net income of $108 M, $64 M and $47 M. In November 1998,
Texas Pacific Group acquired 62% of the company's shares and GE Capital's 1993 option was replaced by one to acquire an interest of 23%. As part of this transaction, the name of the company was changed to AerFi Group plc.
In December 1999, AerFi acquired Indigo Aviation, a Swedish aircraft lessor, and by 31 March 2000 was managing a fleet of 104 aircraft and reporting a profit of $68 M.
In November 2000, AerFi was acquired by debis AirFinance, an affiliate of
DaimlerChrysler AG
The Mercedes-Benz Group AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufacture ...
, for $750 M. AerFi's fleet and staff were then merged into those of debis AirFinance.
In March 2005, debis AirFinance was acquired by
Cerberus Capital
Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is an American private equity firm,Leaders Magazine"Providing Economic Opportunity: An Interview with The Honorable Dan Quayle, Chairman, Cerberus Global Investments, LLC". specializing in distressed investing. ...
and subsequently renamed
AerCap
AerCap Holdings N.V. is an Irish aircraft leasing company based in Dublin. It became the largest aircraft leasing company in the world after acquiring International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) in 2014, then GECAS from General Electric in ...
.
Legacy
Many of the directors and staff of GPA subsequently went on to found or work for other aircraft lessors, such as
GECAS (now merged into AerCap),
Genesis Lease
Genesis Lease Limited () was a global aircraft leasing company incorporated in Bermuda in July 2006 and had a successful IPO and New York Stock Exchange listing in December 2006. It was headquartered in Shannon, County Clare, Ireland. It acquire ...
,
CIT,
AerCap
AerCap Holdings N.V. is an Irish aircraft leasing company based in Dublin. It became the largest aircraft leasing company in the world after acquiring International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) in 2014, then GECAS from General Electric in ...
(a successor to Guinness Peat and previously debisAirFinance),
ILFC (now merged into AerCap), Pembroke Capital, International Aircraft Management Group (subsequently RBS Aviation Capital and later SMBC Aviation Capital),
Babcock & Brown (now Fly Leasing) and
Aircastle
Aircastle Limited is an aircraft leasing company that acquires, leases and sells commercial jet aircraft to airlines around the world. It has its headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, with offices in Dublin and Singapore. Aircastle was incorpora ...
. The availability of this
cadre of highly trained specialists in Ireland is one of the principal reasons (along with a favourable
corporate tax environment associated with the
International Financial Services Centre
The International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) is an area of central Dublin and part of the CBD established in the 1980s as an urban regeneration area and special economic zone (SEZ) on the derelict state-owned former port authority lan ...
(IFSC) in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
) why the country has become one of the worldwide centres of the commercial aircraft financing and leasing industry, with over 40 companies, most located in the IFSC. GPA's founder, Tony Ryan, set up his own airline,
Ryanair, that was Europe's biggest in 2014, carrying over 83.8 M passengers annually.
Sponsorship
During the
Ethiopian famine, GPA sponsored two
airlifts of emergency supplies in October and November 1984. GPA supported the renovation of the
Bolton Library in
Cashel, County Tipperary
Cashel (; ) is a town in County Tipperary in Ireland. Its population was 4,422 in the 2016 census. The town gives its name to the ecclesiastical province of ''Cashel''. Additionally, the ''cathedra'' of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel ...
. A number of other, mainly artistic endeavours benefited from sponsorship by GPA that included the following: In 1988 the first GPA Dublin International Piano Competition took place and was won by French pianist
Philippe Cassard. In 1984
Robert Armstrong won the Guinness Peat Aviation Awards for Emerging Artists and in 1986
Eithne Jordan won during the show held in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
. One of the exhibitors was
Vincent Killowry and in 1987 GPA bought most of the works at his first one-man show in
Limerick
Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...
. In 1989
John Banville received the Guinness Peat Aviation Book Award for his novel ''The Book of Evidence'', also
shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Also in 1989 the
Foynes
Foynes (; ) is a town and major port in County Limerick in the midwest of Ireland, located at the edge of hilly land on the southern bank of the Shannon Estuary. The population of the town was 520 as of the 2016 census.
Foynes's role as seap ...
Flying boat Museum at its inception, was sponsored as the ''GPA Foynes Flying Boat Museum''.
A statue of
Daedalus
In Greek mythology, Daedalus (, ; Greek: Δαίδαλος; Latin: ''Daedalus''; Etruscan: ''Taitale'') was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. He is the father of Icarus, the uncle of Perdix, a ...
, sculpted by
John Behan, was presented to the people of
Ennis to mark the town's 750th anniversary in 1990.
Sources
Bibliography
*
*
External links
Foynes Flying Boat & Maritime Museum
mainly historical
GPA Guinness Peat Aviation – Details and Fleet HistoryPlanespotters.net
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guinness Peat Aviation
Aircraft leasing companies of the Republic of Ireland
Defunct transport companies of the Republic of Ireland
Irish companies established in 1975
Airlines established in 1975
Airlines disestablished in 2000
2000 disestablishments in Ireland