GOL agrees US$600 million financing to finance 12 Boeing 737 MAX

 GOL agrees US$600 million financing to finance 12 Boeing 737 MAX

 

On the morning of January 24, 2022 Brazilian airline GOL Linhas Aéreas (B3 - IBOV: GOLL4 | NYSE: GOL) (GOL or “Company”) issued a “MATERIAL FACT” to its investors announcing financing of up to US$600 million with the Castlelake LP to finance the acquisition of new 737 MAX 8 aircraft.

 

“The financing of these Boeing 737 MAX aircraft marks the beginning of a new cycle of value creation in our fleet,” said Paulo Kakinoff, CEO. “With favorable market conditions for new MAX aircraft and our strong partnership with Boeing as one of its largest customers, these aircraft further strengthen our leadership position in the market.”

 

The transaction will include 10 finance leases and 2 sale-leasebacks. The interest rate for finance leases is approximately 6% p.a., which represents a reduction from operating lease costs for current aircraft in the fleet. The proceeds from the transaction will cover 100% of the acquisition cost of the new aircraft and provide additional funds that will be directed towards obligations and costs of returning GOL's 737 NG aircraft. The Company expects to return up to 18 737 NG aircraft in 2022, and a total of 34 NG aircraft by the end of 2025, which should further contribute to the reduction of unit costs.

 

Editor's Note:

What is sale leaseback? – Sale leaseback is a transaction in which a company sells “something” to another company and then leases that “something”, normally for a minimum term of years. The company that sells becomes the lessee and the company that buys becomes the lessor. In this type of transaction, the lessor is typically an insurance company, finance company, leasing company, or institutional investor.

 

Delivery of these 12 additional Boeing 737 MAX aircraft begins in January 2022, in line with GOL's plan to accelerate the transformation of its fleet and have half of its aircraft under finance leases by 2026. In 3Q21, the Company signed contracts for 26 additional MAX 8 aircraft, and currently has a total of 102 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to be delivered.

 

“The acceleration in the transformation of our fleet to the 737 MAX positions us more competitively to grow with greater flexibility in the management of our capacity and allows the expansion of routes and destinations, which will guarantee us high efficiency in meeting the fluctuations in demand for trips,” said Celso Ferrer, Vice President of Operations. “In addition, the addition of these new aircraft will reduce the average age of GOL's fleet from 11 to 7 years.”

 

The Boeing MAX is also a key component of the Company's goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, as this aircraft consumes 15% less fuel, produces 16% less carbon emissions and 40% less noise, and has a longer flight range. than the NG model.

 

Richard Lark, Chief Financial Officer, concluded: “We are in an advantageous position to better optimize our capital structure through the various accesses to funding sources available via export credit agencies, capital markets and operating leases.

 

This latest aircraft transaction further reinforces the financial sustainability of our fleet management and increases the Company's value to all stakeholders through the efficiency gains that we will achieve.”

 

*NOTE: This publication was written in Portuguese (Brazil) and automatically translated by Google robots to English. MORE THAN FLY, adopted Google technology for everyone around the world to have access to information and optimize our time and budget with translations. We ask for common sense to take into account translation errors. After all, every robot is limited and is never compared to the superiority of a human intelligence.