HONG KONGâ€"Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance said Thursday it has agreed to acquire a San Francisco-based aircraft leasing company from Oaktree Capital Management for 100 billion yen ($1.3 billion).
The Tokyo-listed company, a unit of the Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Corp., said the acquisition of JSA International, which operates as Jackson Square Aviation, will be funded through cash and bank loans and is expected to close in December.
Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance already currently leases industrial machinery, real estate and automobiles, and said the deal for Jackson Square will help it branch into a new business line and capitalize on rising global aircraft passenger volumes.
Jackson Square was set up in early 2010 with $500 million in initial seed money from Oaktree and today operates a fleet of around 70 aircraft with branch offices in Seattle, London, Miami, Toulouse, Singapore, and Beijing.
Shares in Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance rose 3 percent in Tokyo on Thursday after the deal was announced to close at 3,395 yen per share. The stock is up 11 percent in the year to date, compared with an 11.3 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei index.
