Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) Ltd. announced today that it had been mandated by one of the world’s largest fund managers to source and manage aircraft valued at approximately US$1.4 billion.

DAE will acquire the assets and DAE’s best-in-class Aircraft Investor Services (“AIS”) platform will manage the assets on behalf of the investor. The multi-year mandate will involve sourcing and managing the aircraft and assisting the investor with the capital structure for the acquired aircraft. The mandate will primarily target used narrow-body and wide-body aircraft sourced through DAE’s global relationships in secondary market trading and sale-leaseback channels.

The addition of this mandate will bring DAE’s managed portfolio to over US$2.7 billion in assets under management. Coupled with other ongoing projects, DAE fully expects its managed portfolio to grow to its target of US$5 billion.

Commenting on the mandate, Firoz Tarapore, Chief Executive Officer of DAE said: “DAE is thrilled to have the opportunity to grow its managed aircraft business by sourcing and managing aircraft for a world-class financial institution. We are off to a flying start and have already sourced 25% of the portfolio.

“We own more than 300 aircraft and will manage more than 100 aircraft. We maintain an active dialog with 250 airline customers. This scale and relevance combined with our 150-person full-service platform and our industry leading AIS offering is a very compelling value proposition for investors in the managed aircraft space” Tarapore added.