New financier Sankaty Jet Capital – exclusive
The Sankaty Lighthouse has lent its name to Ford von Weise's new aviation finance business. (Photocredit: Shutterstock).
The hardest thing about launching a new investment firm is not finding investors or completing regulatory paperwork; it is choosing the name. A lot of the cool classical names like Cerberus and Apollo have already been snapped up. (Although Sterculius Capital – named after the Roman god of manure – is still available if you want to buy the URL from us.)
It is the same with animals. There is a pride of different firms named after lions, several amoeba-based ones and even a Sloth Capital. But there are still some great options available if you are imaginative. This includes Tapeworm Ventures: “Always with you, insider knowledge.”
The safer option is to name it after a place.
A new business jet financier has chosen this approach with Sankaty Jet Capital. Named after the Sankaty Lighthouse on Nantucket Island, the firm is led by Ford von Weise, formerly head of Aircraft Finance at Citi Private Bank.
“Having spent more than 25 years in business aircraft finance at three different banks, I want to spend the next 10 years building a platform that can fund the entire business aviation market without the constraints of traditional banks,” von Weise tells us. “Business aviation is a wonderful industry but one that is not broadly understood by financial institutions. This means that access to capital has not been as widely available as it should be.”
Sankaty is backed by AIP Capital (you can also go for an acronym), a global alternative investment manager focused on asset-based finance including aviation and equipment. AIP Capital launched in 2023 and has grown quickly since then. It now manages $4bn of assets for its investors with around 50 people.
Sankaty Jet Capital is offering loans to individuals buying aircraft; floor plan or inventory finance for aircraft dealers; and financing aircraft for branded charter operators. Few banks will even consider charter businesses.
It also wants to finance business aircraft all over the world. AIP Capital has offices in Connecticut, New York, Dublin and Singapore as well as joint ventures in Korea and Japan to support this.
Jared Ailstock and Mathew Adamo, AIP Capital’s founders and managing partners, worked together at Castlelake, another commercial aircraft investor. Before that Ailstock was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse where he worked on aircraft securitisations.
Scott Debano, head of distribution AIP Capital, has experience in both commercial and business aviation finance. Debano was one of the bankers that helped fund the launch of business jet financier Global Jet Capital 15 years ago when he was at Citi (von Weise also worked with Debano on this).
“Sankaty Jet Capital will combine business aviation finance know-how with AIP Capital’s structuring strengths, capital advantages, relationships and knowledge from the commercial aircraft finance market,” says von Weise. “This will bring business aviation borrowers access to capital that has not been available before.”
Sankaty may encourage other investment firms into business aviation. If you are one of them, how about Hernia Capital: “We push through weakness”?
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