Ex-Im Bank bond maintains Brazilian airline, Delta TechOps deal

   The U.S. Export-Import Bank said one of its guaranteed bonds funded by the capital markets raised $40.7 million for the Brazilian airline VRG Linhas Aéreas S.A. (GOL) for engine-maintenance services performed by Delta TechOps in Atlanta.
   Delta TechOps is the maintenance, repair and overhaul division of Delta Air Lines.
   The bond was issued in mid-February to raise the funds to reimburse GOL for costs related to engine-maintenance services performed by Delta TechOps in 2013. The two-year bond bears interest at a fixed rate of 0.622 percent.
   GOL issued the bond under a $45.5 million guarantee authorized by Ex-Im Bank in May 2013 to support Delta TechOps exports to the Brazilian airline. The financing is supporting an estimated 400 jobs at Delta TechOps, according to Ex-Im Bank.
   “The availability of Ex-Im Bank’s financing was the key to our choosing this U.S. provider for these services and is strengthening the partnership between our two companies,” said Paulo Kakinoff, chief executive officer of GOL, in a statement.
   The work is being performed on GOL’s Boeing 737s. The engines are shipped from São Paulo, Brazil, to Atlanta for heavy maintenance performed by Delta TechOps.
   The February issuance was the third Ex-Im Bank-guaranteed bond issuance to finance engine-maintenance services. The previous two issuances, which also supported Delta TechOps’s services to GOL, were done in 2012 under an $84.8 million Ex-Im Bank commitment approved the same year. The financing covered the first two years of GOL’s five-year engine-maintenance contract with Delta TechOps that was signed in December 2010.