General Electric is close to sealing a deal to sell hers aircraft leasing business to the Irish group Aercap, an industry leader listed on the New York Stock Exchange. He writes it on Financial Times, specifying that the value of the transaction could exceed i 30 billion dollars. The agreement would lead to the merger between GE Capital Aviation Services (Gecas) and AerCap. The former is one of the world's largest leasing companies, which buys aircraft and leases them to airlines. To date, it has a fleet of 1.650 aircraft, including those on order.
General Electric has already considered several times the possibility of selling its aircraft leasing business to a competitor. Indeed, the group intends dispose of assets not consistent with its main business and over the past five years, he has sold a number of large assets, such as his biotech assets to Danaher for $21 billion and his stake in oil services company Baker Hughes.
In 2019, Bloomberg had written that the private equity group Apollo Global Management was studying the purchase of Gecas for up to 40 billion.
In the meantime, Aercap expanded its business, last year becoming a major shareholder (at 15,9%) of Norwegian Air Shuttle, a struggling Norwegian government-controlled airline. Furthermore, in 2013, the Irish company had acquired the International Lease Finance Corporation for 7,6 billion dollars.
