Amedeo Air Four Plus (AA4), one of two remaining plane-leasing funds listed on the London Stock Exchange, soared nearly 28% on Friday after receiving a £143m cash bid from a Qatari bank.
Lesha Bank, one of several bidders that emerged after a strategic review in 2024, has made a 73p per share cash offer that has been recommended by the board of the Guernsey investment company launched 11 years ago.
The offer is 33% more than AA4’s closing price of 55p on Thursday but 32% below their net asset value of 106.9p.
Shares in the 14.5% yielder jumped 15p, or 27.6%, to 70p in response to the news on Friday, and have slipped back to 69.2p this morning. After floating at 100p in May 2015, they peaked at 184p in January 2019 before crashing to a 28p low two years later as the global aviation sector struggled to recover from the lockdown of the 2020 Covid pandemic.
The company owns six Airbus A380-800s and two Boeing 777-300ERs leased to Emirates on 12-year leases and four Airbus A350-900s leased to Thai Airways on 18-year leases.
Metage, Staude Capital and Weiss, holders of 19.5% of the shares, are backing the deal which needs 75% approval at a shareholder meeting to be announced.
Qatar-listed Lesha is buying the portfolio of 12 aircraft for its aviation capital business which owns and leases 15 widebody aircraft, including Boeing 777-300ERs, Boeing 787-8, Boeing 787-9, and Airbus A350-1000 aircraft.
AA4 chair Robin Hallam said: “The transaction represents the conclusion to a detailed, comprehensive and extended strategic review process undertaken to consider alternative options and maximise value for shareholders. We believe this is the best outcome for AA4+ shareholders, delivering a premium, liquidity and certainty.”
Speaking on our “In the HotSeat” show on Friday, QuotedData’s head of investment company research, James Carthew, said AA4’s 45% share price discount was “probably way too wide” as Emirates had bought back planes from the three former London-listed Doric Nimrod funds when they neared the end of their leases, showing how the investments could de-risk as they matured.
Carthew said he would normally suggest shareholders hold on through the bid process to see if the discount narrows further, or even if a counter bid emerges. However, he said, “we’ve got this Iran war going on and the planes aren’t flying and we really don’t know how long this is going to go on for so Emirates and people could be badly affected by this, in which case you’d start to wonder if they need to buy the planes off you, so maybe you just want to say somebody else could look after this now.”
The programme also included a presentation by and interview with Finsbury Growth & Income (FGT) manager Nick Train (see below).
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