South African air cargo and aircraft leasing company Safair is to be acquired by Imperial Holdings, a local transport and automotive company, in a R230 million ($40 million) cash purchase. The buy will be completed at the end of January 1999.
Safair is a wholly owned subsidiary of South Africa's shipping, cargo and travel and leisure conglomerate, Safren.
In recent years, Imperial Bank, the finance subsidiary of Imperial Holdings, has gained experience in aircraft lease-financing in general and corporate aviation.
Executive director Tuk Hiemstra says the company has about R480-million of aircraft leases on its books. Safair's fleet of jet and turboprop aircraft is worth about R560 million, although this did not take into account depreciation and debt.
Until the early 1990s Safair's activities were focused on serving the local and regional air cargo market. It was the world's largest single operator of Lockheed L-100 Hercules transports and provided strategic air transport support to the South African Air Force during the war along the Namibia-Angolan border.
In 1991, the company diversified into aircraft maintenance and moved into the overnight courier business, using two leased British Aerospace 146s.
Political changes in the country forced the company to take a new direction. Further engineering investment resulted in Safair becoming a 727 freighter conversion centre (sold to Denel in 1997 with all of Safair's engineering interests) .
In 1994. Safair acquired its first 727-200s, ex-Lufthansa machines that had been operating for THY in Turkey. The fleet has grown to include seven 727-200s and five MD-80s, all operated locally by Comair (727s) and Sun Air (MD-80s and 727s). This year Safair acquired a major stake in Air Contractors (formerly a unit of Hunting Cargo Airlines) based in Ireland, which operates and leases Airbus A300 freighters.
Source: Flight International
