Firm barred from bidding on rival

IRISH AIRCRAFT leasing company Avolon, founded last year by Dómhnal Slattery, has been barred from the bidding process for Royal Bank of Scotland’s Dublin-based aircraft leasing division.

Mr Slattery is a former chief executive of RBS Aviation Capital, the Dublin-based company that has been put on the blocks by the part-nationalised British bank.

RBS Aviation could be worth about between $6 billion (€4.15 billion) and $8 billion, according to analysts. First-round bids are expected to be submitted in the middle of August.

Mr Slattery founded International Aviation Management Group, which was bought by RBS in 2001. He left the business in 2004 but remained as a non-executive director until 2008.

No reason has been given for the decision to exclude Avolon.

Avolon last year poached seven senior staff from RBS Aviation, when the company was previously for sale. Most of Avolon’s senior management team are ex-RBS, including its president and chief commercial officer John Higgins.

Avolon declined to comment yesterday, but it is understood the Irish company would have been interested in the RBS business.

On June 16th, in an interview with Bloomberg, Mr Slattery expressed an interest in the RBS division.

“If RBS is for sale we would naturally look at it within the framework of our investment criteria,” Mr Slattery said.

RBS Aviation is one of the world’s top-five commercial airline leasing groups. It owns, manages or has orders for 466 aircraft.

Avolon has raised $3 billion in capital since its launch and is backed by private equity groups CVC, Cinven and Oak Hill Capital.

Excluding a potential bidder is unusual in an auction process given that the main objective is to obtain the best price possible.

Bank of China, private equity firm Terra Firma and GE Capital Aviation Services are expected to be among the possible suitors for the aircraft-leasing arm.