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In a major boost to GIFT City’s efforts to become the destination for Indian airlines to lease and finance aircraft, Tata Group’s Vistara has financed two Airbus A320neos from there. So far, some Indian aviation companies such as Air India have leased aircraft from GIFT City. Vistara’s move is one of the first examples of an Indian airline getting aircraft financed from there.
Watson Farley & Williams (WFW) had advised Standard Chartered on the financing of two A320neos, “using a unique structuring through Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) using an entity that is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the airline. milestone The transaction is one of the first commercial aircraft financing transactions to be structured through GIFT,” an official said.
The WFW Singapore Aviation team that advised the Bank was led by partner Richard Williams. Richard said: “It was a great privilege for us to have the opportunity to advise Standard Chartered as an advisor to lenders and to work with the Vistara team on this market-leading transaction. WFW is passionate about aviation in India and the opportunities we can offer our expertise to support the expansion. We thank the other advisors on the transaction for their first-class advice.”
GIFT City is India’s first operational greenfield smart city and international financial services center and the government plans to bring the aircraft financing and leasing operations of desi airlines to India instead of countries like Ireland and Singapore. Air India, IndiGo and the Adani Group have set up specialized companies there for this purpose.
