DAE may return to Boeing, Airbus with wide-body aircraft orders

DAE cancelled the bulk of its orders with Airbus and Boeing in 2010 amid the global financial crisis.

Bloomberg

Dubai

Dubai Aerospace Enterprise may start talks with Boeing Co and Airbus Group this year to order wide-body planes while adding turboprop aircraft to expand its leasing unit.

“There is a big appetite for wide-bodies,” Khalifa al-Daboos, managing director of the state-owned lessor, said in an interview. “We might initiate talks with Boeing and Airbus this year for some orders.”

DAE cancelled the bulk of its orders with Toulouse, France-based Airbus and Chicago-based Boeing in 2010 amid the global financial crisis. It signed an order for 40 ATR turboprops at the Singapore Airshow this year, eschewing the large jets the lessor has ordered in the past.

The company is already in talks with airlines in South America, East Asia, Europe and the Mideast to provide them with Avions de Transport Regional aircraft for feeder traffic, al-Daboos said in the interview. DAE may need an additional 80 to 120 turboprops next year to meet demand, he said.

DAE expects to sign memorandums of understanding with South American and East Asian carriers for turboprops as soon as in the next two months, al-Daboos said. The company is in talks with banks to raise $200mn to $400mn, partly to pay for ATRs.

“We are trying to expand in leasing and engineering,” al-Daboos said. “Last year we looked at different sectors in terms of leasing. We found that ATR is very interesting commercially and the desire in the market supported that.”

DAE is also talking with some of Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways’ equity partners about providing them with aircraft, according to Al Daboos.

While Emirates is DAE’s biggest client, other customers include Turkish Airlines, EasyJet in the UK, Stockholm-based SAS and Garuda of Indonesia. The company targets adding 100 additional aircraft within five years, al-Daboos said. It has 58 planes in the fleet and is awaiting delivery of the 40 ATRs and three Boeing 777 aircraft. Half of the ATRs are firm orders, with 20 are optional.

Start-up airlines, such as Libyan Wings and Syrian carrier Kinda, are planning to start operations initially with leased aircraft, creating a wider market for regional lessors.

“Regional start-ups are a big potential here but stability in the region doesn’t allow you to think of the short term but in the long term,” al-Daboos said.

Natixis boosts Dubai staff by 50% with JPMorgan to UBS hires

Natixis is increasing its Dubai staff by 50% as the investment-banking arm of France’s second-largest bank by branches seeks to boost revenue from international operations, Bloomberg reported.

The unit of Paris-based Groupe BPCE is hiring bankers in areas from energy and commodities finance to capital markets and distribution, Simon Eedle, head of Natixis in the Middle East, said in a May 6 interview from Dubai. Natixis recruited bankers in December from UBS, JPMorgan Chase & Co and QNB to strengthen its Dubai team.

“In the Gulf our strategy is to invest,” said Eedle, who was formerly global head of Islamic banking at Credit Agricole in Bahrain. “We want to develop not only areas where we are very strong such as infrastructure, project finance, energy and commodities, we also want to build a better coverage for our oil and gas and aircraft clients.”

Natixis wants to boost revenue from overseas to more than half of the total from about 44% last year. The bank set targets to increase revenue from its main businesses to €8bn ($11bn) in 2017 as it focuses on operations from wholesale banking to asset management.

European banks are returning to the Gulf after withdrawing during the credit crisis, when regulators at home forced them to shrink their balance sheets, reduce risk and raise capital.