Capital Advisory
Aviation debt placement, built the way lenders underwrite it.
We arrange debt for aviation acquisitions and development projects, building the financing case around the economics lenders actually underwrite: operating performance, leasehold structure, collateral and cash flow.
We work with institutions that understand aviation assets and the businesses built around them.
Few lenders underwrite leasehold improvements on airport land.
A hangar on ground you do not own, with a lease that reverts to the sponsor, is not collateral most credit committees recognize. The institutions that do lend against it are a short list — and they price the risk accurately, which is exactly why they are the ones worth approaching.
Sees a building on land you will hand back.
A regional bank looks at an airport leasehold and sees an unfamiliar collateral position, a reversion clause and a tenant whose landlord is a municipality.
The usual outcome is not a decline. It is a term sheet with an advance rate, a coverage requirement and a term that make the project uneconomic — or six weeks of process ending in a committee that was never going to approve it.
- Amortization shorter than the remaining lease term
- Advance rate set against land the borrower does not own
- Fuel margin treated as commodity exposure
- Hangar rent roll read as month-to-month risk
Has held this asset through a cycle.
Institutions already lending in the sector understand ground lease risk, how fuel margin behaves when volume falls, and the difference between a hangar rent roll and a service line.
They ask harder questions and they ask them earlier — which is why the package has to be assembled before the first conversation rather than during it.
- Remaining lease term against amortization
- Normalized cash flow, not reported EBITDA
- Coverage under a stressed volume case
- Improvement ownership and reversion terms
The package
Built to the standard the committee applies, not the one the borrower hopes for.
Every item below exists before a lender is approached. A financing that goes out incomplete gets repriced, and the repricing is permanent.
Lease abstract
Remaining term, extension rights, rent escalation, assignment and consent provisions, improvement ownership and reversion — the document the credit memo is written around.
Normalized cash flow
Reported results reconstructed to recurring operating earnings, with every adjustment supported. Lenders discount what they cannot trace.
Coverage under stress
Debt service coverage modeled against a volume decline and a margin compression, not only against the base case.
Collateral position
A collateral package that reflects how the asset actually operates — leasehold mortgage, assignment of rents, fuel inventory and equipment.
Sources and uses
Equity commitment, contingency and the carry through lease-up or integration, reconciled to the construction or acquisition schedule.
Sponsor consent path
What the airport has to approve, in what sequence, and how long it has historically taken at this field. Consent risk kills more aviation financings than credit does.
Hangar developments, FBO acquisitions, terminal projects.
Construction and permanent debt for hangar and terminal development on leased airport land. Acquisition financing for FBOs and aviation service businesses, including the working capital and fuel inventory line that usually gets forgotten until closing. Refinancing where a maturing facility, a lease extension or a completed lease-up has changed what the asset can support.
We are not a lender and we do not take a position in the credit. We assemble the case, run a controlled process among institutions active in the sector, and stay in it through commitment, documentation and sponsor consent.
Where the financing sits alongside an acquisition, the debt case and the valuation are built together so the offer reflects what a lender will actually support.
Bring the financing question up early — it changes the offer.
Buyers routinely set a price and then go looking for debt. The order should be reversed: what a lender will support against this lease, this cash flow and this collateral is an input to the offer, not a consequence of it.
For a development, the same is true of the demand study. The absorption schedule a lender will underwrite is usually more conservative than the one the pro forma was built on, and it is better to find that out before the sponsor approves a phasing plan.
This practice operates alongside Griffin Towers’ transaction work rather than separately from it. The same principals do both.
The firm
Senior principals, involved throughout.
Griffin Towers is an independent advisory firm focused on aviation transactions and select strategic assignments.
The practice is intentionally focused. Engagements are led directly by senior principals from initial analysis and valuation through negotiation, diligence and execution.
We favor preparation, discretion and disciplined judgment over transaction volume.
A private overview of the firm, representative experience and selected capabilities is available upon request.
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Boulder, Colorado 80304