(Bloomberg, Paris, 22 September 2011) EADS sought to assure investors that lenders and leasing companies aren’t retreating from the aircraft financing market, as the parent of Airbus SAS tumbled the most in five weeks… EADS dropped as much as 7.5 percent in Paris trading after Les Echos reported BNP Paribas (BNP) SA and Societe Generale (GLE) have stopped lending to aircraft purchasers because of difficulties in obtaining dollar refinancing. Societe Generale, France’s 3rd bank by assets, said Sept. 12 that it may reduce its business to help finance aircraft and ships… “French banks contribute 15-20 % maximum to financing commercial aircraft, and of that portion, a significant part is backed by export credit finance, an area where U.S. banks could easily step in” to fill the breach, the managing director of DVB Bank SE (DVB), amongst the biggest aircraft financiers in Europe, said in an interview today. [While the OECD has not published sectoral data for official export credits since their 12 January 2007 release of 2005 statistics, commercial aircraft finance was then a leading official export credit sector – 29% of ECA reported long-term credits and 37% of 717 reported projects.]
Date
31 August 2011
