Natixis Investment Managers acquires minority stake in air finance business

Natixis Investment Managers, the asset management arm of French bank Group BPCE, has acquired a minority stake in specialist aircraft lease and asset management firm Airborne Capital. The stake was acquired for an undisclosed sum from the existing shareholders, comprising Airborne’s founding management team and FEXCO, Ireland’s largest privately owned financial services company. The deal provides Airborne with access to a worldwide asset management platform which will help to accelerate its plans to grow the business to have aircraft assets under management of over US$5bn within the first 5 years of operations. The transaction enables Natixis Investment Managers to continue to expand its expertise in alternative investments, specifically real assets. Airborne was launched in November 2017 by a management team with over 100 years of combined experience in aviation finance, including with Natixis, one of the leading banks in aviation financing, where Ramki Sundaram, CEO of Airborne Capital, was previously Global Head of Aviation.