Aircastle Shares Coming to Market

Aircastle Limited (AYR-NYSE) has filed to sell 13.5 million shares, plus some overallotment shares that allow a total of 15.525 million shares to be sold.  This isn’t the Fortress Investment Group selling, it’s the company; so all funds are to be used by the company.  This is a fairly fast re-selling of shares for a company that is still a recent IPO and the backers still have most of their share locked-up.

J.P.Morgan, Bear Stearns, and Citigroup are the lead underwriters; and others in the syndicate are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Jefferies.  The company is using the sale to pay down its credit facilities and for general corporate purposes.

This IPO priced at $23.00, at the higher-end of the $21 to $23 range.  It has traded in the $25.75 to $33.45 range since coming public, and shares are currently around $30.00.  Usually share sales by the company are deemed good, but since the bulk of the company is owned by Fortress and since the IPO was only 5 months ago it’s probably a safe guess that this is just the first of many filings to sell shares and the other filings will probably come from Fortress instead of from the company itself.  You can see the full filing here.

Jon C. Ogg
January 26, 2007