Aircastle Ltd. Reports Operating Results (10-Q)

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Aug 03, 2012
Aircastle Ltd. (AYR, Financial) filed Quarterly Report for the period ended 2012-06-30.

Aircastle Limited has a market cap of $847.8 million; its shares were traded at around $11.99 with a P/E ratio of 8.8 and P/S ratio of 1.4. The dividend yield of Aircastle Limited stocks is 5.1%. Aircastle Limited had an annual average earning growth of 15.9% over the past 5 years.

Highlight of Business Operations:

We acquire, lease, and sell high-utility commercial jet aircraft. High-utility aircraft are generally modern and operationally efficient jets with many operators and have long useful lives. As of June 30, 2012, our portfolio consisted of 155 aircraft leased to 67 lessees located in 36 countries. Our aircraft fleet is managed by an experience team based in the United States, Ireland and Singapore. Typically, our aircraft are subject to net leases whereby the lessee is generally responsible for maintaining the aircraft and paying operational, maintenance and insurance costs, although in a majority of cases, we are obligated to pay a portion of specified maintenance or modification costs. From time to time, we also make investments in other aviation assets, including debt investments secured by commercial jet aircraft. Our revenues and income from continuing operations for the three and six months ended June 30, 2012 were $172.2 million and $16.3 million, $337.1 million and $48.9 million, respectively.

We intend to pay quarterly dividends to our shareholders based on the company s sustainable earnings levels; however, our ability to pay quarterly dividends will depend upon many factors, including those as previously disclosed in Aircastle s 2011 Annual Report on Form 10-K. On February 17, 2012, our board of directors declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.15 per common share, or an aggregate of $10.9 million, for the three months ended March 31, 2012, which was paid on March 15, 2012 to holders of record on February 29, 2012. On May 2, 2012, our board of directors declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.15 per common share, or an aggregate of $10.8 million, for the three months ended June 30, 2012, which was paid on June 15, 2012 to holders of record on May 31, 2012. This dividend may not be indicative of the amount of any future dividends. On August 1, 2012, our board of directors declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.15 per common share for the three months ended September 30, 2012, which will be paid on September 15, 2012 to holders of record on August 31, 2012.

Other revenue. For the three months ended June 30, 2011, other revenue was $0.4 million which was primarily due to additional fees paid by lessees in connection with early termination of four leases. For the three months ended June 30, 2012, other revenue was $3.0 million which was primarily due to $1.1 million of interest on our debt investments and $1.0 million of interest recognized from finance leases.

Other revenue. For the six months ended June 30, 2011, other revenue was $3.4 million which was primarily due to additional fees paid by lessees in connection with early termination of four leases. For the six months ended June 30, 2012, other revenue was $4.6 million which was primarily due to $1.2 million of interest on our debt investments, $1.0 million of interest recognized from finance leases and approximately $2.0 million attributable to additional fees paid by lessees in connection with the early termination of five leases.

Under the terms of Securitization No. 2, effective June 8, 2012 all cash flows available after expenses and interest will be applied to debt amortization. We expect that debt amortization payments, excluding repayments from asset sales, over the next twelve months will be approximately $130.7 million, excluding debt repayments from asset sales of $1.8 million, compared to $40.6 million, excluding debt repayments from asset sales of $42.1 million, made over the twelve months ended June 30, 2012. Further, for this financing, we recently entered into a forward starting interest rate derivative arrangement to hedge approximately 75% of the expected future debt balance beginning in June 2012 at an average swap rate of 1.27%, which is approximately 400 basis points lower than the existing interest rate derivative which expired in June 2012.

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