SMBC Aviation Capital places $8.5bn aircraft order

SMBC Aviation Capital, the Dublin headquartered aircraft lessor, has placed firm order for 80 Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, in a deal worth around $8.5bn (€6.8bn)at list prices.

The deal is the largest single order of 737 MAXs by a lessor and the largest Boeing order of any kind from a Japanese-owned lessor. The aircraft will be powered by the CFM LEAP engine and will be delivered to SMBC Aviation Capital between 2018 and 2022.

The deal follows the announcement from the Japanese-owned and Dublin-headquartered aviation leasing specialist in July that it had placed a firm order for 115 Airbus aircraft to be delivered between 2016 and 2022. This deal was the biggest single-aisle aircraft purchase deal announced by anyone in the leasing industry.

Peter Barrett, CEO of SMBC Aviation Capital, said that today’ deal shows the lessor’s ongoing commitment to the new generation of the popular B737 family, “as well as our appetite to keep broadening and deepening our platform in order to service our customers’ requirements”.

“Following this order and given the clear commitment of our shareholders and the strength of the global aircraft leasing sector, we remain very confident in our ability to continue to deliver long-term growth.”

SMBC is the world’s third- biggest aircraft lessor. Its parent is the Tokyo- and New York-listed Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, which acquired the Dublin-based RBS Aviation Capital from Royal Bank of Scotland for $7 billion in 2012. It then merged this with its own leasing arms, which were in Amsterdam, to form SMBC Aviation Capital.