Hawaiian Airlines has closed two Japanese yen (JPY)-denominated financings for four Airbus A330 and two A321neo aircraft totalling $227.9 million (¥24.7 billion).
The terms of the loans are 12 years and 5.5 years, at fixed instalment coupon rates of 0.76% and 0.65%, respectively, and initially measured and recorded for $89.1 million and $138.7 million, respectively.
Burnham Sterling acted as exclusive financial advisor and placement agent to Hawaiian Airlines on the Japanese Yen-denominated deals.
“Burnham Sterling helped us execute this very innovative financing with a fixed coupon well under 1.0%,” said Shannon Okinaka, Chief Financial Officer at Hawaiian Airlines. “This financing solution has been a win-win for Hawaiian, as it serves the dual purpose of providing a natural hedge to our growing JPY revenues while lowering our all-in financing cost. Most importantly, we were introduced to eight new investors in the Japanese market by the Burnham team, which all took place in the transaction.”
“The success of this transaction was attributable to identifying first-time investors for Hawaiian, including Japanese regional banks, leasing and insurance company participants. We were especially pleased Hawaiian achieved Yen pricing below their swapped USD debt pricing,” said Michael Dickey Morgan, Executive Managing Director at Burnham Sterling. “This follows our first successful JPY transaction we completed for Hawaiian last year. It was exciting to see our deep placement capabilities expand access and increase investor demand for Hawaiian.”
Burnham Sterling structured and placed the transaction with eight institutional investors in Japan, all of which were first-time investors in Hawaiian.