Castlelake, an alternative investment manager with 20 years of experience investing in asset-based private markets, formed Merit AirFinance, an aviation lending business which will provide debt capital to airlines and leasing companies for new and used aviation assets.
Merit AirFinance seeks to provide separation between Castlelake’s leasing and lending offerings as a new operating subsidiary focused on providing debt solutions to airlines and leasing companies.
Merit will have a separate office space and a dedicated origination team. Patrick Mahoney will transition from Castlelake’s aviation capital markets function to lead Merit AirFinance as its president. Mahoney will leverage experience in previous roles within Castlelake’s aviation underwriting, asset-based direct lending teams and aviation capital markets teams to lead Merit’s strategy. Concurrently, Castlelake will welcome Jakob Gallagher to assume Mahoney’s former role, leading Castlelake’s aviation capital markets function. Gallagher has 13 years of experience in aviation capital markets and financing and recently served as head of capital markets at Wings Capital Partners.
“Castlelake has continuously innovated to provide the aviation market with flexible solutions across all aviation assets and the capital stack, and the formation of Merit AirFinance exemplifies this commitment to a solutions-oriented partnership approach,” Evan Carruthers, CEO and chief investment officer of Castlelake, said. “We believe that this approach is valuable to both aviation industry participants and our investors and that it enables us to create more opportunities to match capital with attractive risk-adjusted aviation exposure.”
