Chinese shareholders in sight for aircraft leasing firm Transportation Partners' 500-plane orderbook

Transportation Partners, an Indonesian family-owned aircraft leasing firm that has the world's largest number of next-generation Boeing and Airbus narrowbody aircraft on order, may induct Chinese stakeholders, said its chief operating officer John Duffy yesterday.

Transportation Partners has been in talks with a number of Chinese institutional investors that have approached the company with "quite attractive" proposals to co-invest in some 500 yet-to-be-delivered planes, Duffy told the South China Morning Post on the sidelines of the Airline Economics conference.

Top industry executives at the conference said the entire leasing market has been given a "Bohai boost" in investor interest by Bohai Leasing's landmark acquisition of Irish lessor Avolon for US$7.6 billion - 1.7 times its book value - in September.

Transportation Partners, a lessor owned by the Rusdi Kirana family that owns the Lion Air Group, is expecting 201 Boeing B737 Max passenger aircraft and 174 Airbus A320Neo jets estimated to be worth US$40 billion in total, making it the customer with the largest undelivered order book of the world's most advanced narrowbody planes.

There is no plan to introduce equity shareholders "in the imminent short-term" but it is a "medium-term" possibility, Duffy said, adding the company's family owners would not consider giving up control.

He declined to name companies the firm is talking to but said investment interest is high from Chinese insurance companies and pension funds.

"With this anti-corruption campaign going on, you have billions of dollars in that country [China], and so much of it wants out," he said.