Emirates airline to raise over Dh100bn in 7 years

Dubai-based Emirates airline will need to raise more than Dh100 billion over the next seven years to expand its fleet, said Gary Chapman, Emirates’ president of group services in charge of finances.

He told Bloomberg that the airline would raise $1.3bn (Dh4.77bn) through March 2011 and about $27bn (Dh99bn) for the following six years as it will take delivery of two aircrafts each month for the next six years.

It is weighing all “customary financing vehicles” including going to the capital markets, enhanced equipment trust certificates, a debt instrument that allows a carrier to take possession of an asset and pay for it over time, he said.

“In an ideal world we’d like to get about 85 per cent financing” from debt and the remainder from equity, the executive said, adding that the airline has $3.4bn in cash and will not be forced to pay high interest rate on the loans.

The financing plan is “substantial because it’s pretty close to double what we’ve done in the previous 14 years,” he said

The airline may repay some bonds or look at rescheduling them depending on financing costs, Chapman said.

It has about $5.3 billion of outstanding debt, including a $500 million bond arranged by HSBC Holdings that’s due in March and a $250 million bond due in June next year, according to the carrier’s financial statements.