Good day, and welcome to AerCap's Second Quarter 2022 Financial Results. Today's conference is being recorded, and a transcript will be available following the call on the company's website. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Joseph McGinley, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. Welcome to our Second Quarter 2022 Conference Call. With me today is our Chief Executive Officer, Aengus Kelly; and our Chief Financial Officer, Pete Juhas. Before we begin today's call, I would like to remind you that, some statements made during this conference call, which are not historical facts, may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed, or implied in such statements. AerCap undertakes no obligation other than that imposed by law to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events, information or circumstances that arise after this call. Further information concerning issues that could materially affect performance can be found in AerCap's earnings release dated August 11, 2022. A copy of our earnings release and conference call presentation are available on our website at aercap.com. This call is open to the public and is being webcast simultaneously at aercap.com, and will be archived for replay. We will shortly run through our earnings presentation, and we'll allow time at the end for Q&A. As a reminder, I would ask that, analyst limit themselves to one question and one follow-up. I will now turn the call over to Aengus Kelly.

Thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2022 earnings call. I am pleased to report another quarter of strong earnings and profitability for AerCap. During the second quarter, we generated $1.91 of adjusted earnings per share and adjusted net income of $464 million, as we continue to capitalize on the increasing global demand for aircraft. It is of course AerCap's platform and its people that, underpins our success. During the quarter, the AerCap team executed 184 transactions, which included 125 long-term lease agreements, 16 purchases and 43 sales. This was a tremendous achievement and gives us an unparalleled level of information about both global and regional supply and demand. This unrivaled knowledge combined with the skill sets and know-how of our new colleagues keeps AerCap in its market-leading position. Global passenger traffic continues to increase, with approximately 75,000 daily flights taking place in the four major regions at the beginning of August. This is up, nearly 20% or 12,000 flights per day in the last three months alone. As you'll see from slide 4, this increase was driven by China predominantly, which grew by approximately 7,000 daily flights in that period of time, as a result of the loosening of quarantine restrictions. China is currently taking its biggest steps towards loosening COVID controls, since the pandemic began. We have seen a relaxation of quarantine length and PCR testing requirements. Encouragingly, the US and Europe and the rest of Asia have also continued to make progress despite numerous issues around staffing for airlines and airports in many parts of the world. Ryanair as one example flew 9% more passengers in the second quarter of 2022 versus the second quarter of 2019. Many airlines have underestimated the underlying strength of travel demand, having overcorrected on the way down, and are…

Thanks, Gus. Good morning, everyone. Overall, this was a strong quarter for AerCap. We continue to see an expansion of the global travel recovery, as traffic is picking up in more regions around the world. We're also seeing high utilization of aircraft that are on power by the hour arrangements. These factors along with supply constraints that continue to affect the OEMs are contributing to higher demand for leased aircraft and improving lease rates. We're also seeing very good performance from our new business areas including engines, cargo and helicopters. This led to strong earnings and cash flows this quarter and deleveraging faster than we had expected. For the second quarter, our adjusted net income was $464 million or $1.91 per share. The impact of purchase accounting adjustments, which include lease premium amortization and maintenance rights amortization in the second quarter was $132 million including a reduction to revenue of $105 million and increase in leasing expenses of $27 million. We also had transaction and integration-related expenses of $9 million for the quarter. Taking all those into account, our GAAP net income for the quarter was $340 million or $1.40 per share. I'll spend a few minutes going through the main drivers that affected our results for the second quarter. Basic lease rents were $1.462 billion for the quarter. Once again, we saw strong cash collections this quarter. However, overall basic lease rents were down, given the loss of revenues from the aircraft and engines that were previously unleased to Russian airlines. We continue to see positive momentum with our customers from the global recovery in air travel. During the quarter our cash collections rate exceeded 100% because in addition to the regular rent and maintenance payments for the quarter, we also received repayments of deferral balances. Our deferral notes…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Mark DeVries with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you. So you've got about $6 billion of contracted CapEx over the next two years, how should we think about uses of capital and also your guided $2 billion of annual sales if the OEM delays continue to affect you?

Look, I think we've always been very careful stewards of the shareholders' capital. And if we do see delays, which I think there will be some delays of course and the business continues to perform on the track that it's on, which we're very confident in then that will open up other opportunities for the business and we'll deploy that capital into what we believe is in the best long-term interest of our shareholders.

Okay. Fair enough. And then I think a lot of us expected given some of the new balance sheet constraints a lot of the airlines, exited this pandemic with that, we'd see an increase in kind of their propensity to lease versus finance their fleet themselves. What have you been observing this year in some of the conversations, you've been having with your clients around that?

There is no question, that leasing is growing much faster than I had expected before the pandemic. The OEMs between sale leasebacks and direct lessor orders, we're probably looking at 65% of all deliveries will end up in the leasing channels. So, the airlines have seen the benefits of leasing to the pandemic, because in the pandemic if you own the aircraft that was it, you had it you were stuck with it forever. And I think they've become to appreciate the benefits of the flexibility, that leasing brings more and more airlines. And so at one point, I did not believe that leasing would surpass 50%, of the global market. We're way past that now in terms of, value and it's only going one way. Q – Mark DeVries: Okay. Great. Thank you

All right. And our next question will come from Moshe Orenbuch with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Great. Gus, you mentioned that increased narrow-body demand and ongoing and expected to increase widebody demand, resulting in and the supply constraints resulting in kind of lease extensions and higher lease rates. Could you talk a little bit about, how you're going to see that we're going to see that in the results at AerCap over the coming quarters?

Well, look, I think you're going to see us over the medium to long -- the medium term. You'll see the short term through aircraft sales of course. But as we place an airplane today, it goes on lease let's say it's up 30,000 month from where it was a couple of years ago, you will see that extra incremental revenue falls through the P&L as the airplane goes on lease and then every month thereafter. But what reprices is, what's subject to repricing. So stuff that we're leasing today, are stuff that we're putting on in our forward order book as well. But fundamentally, it also reflected itself in the value of the assets too.

Right. And Pete, clearly, it looks like this quarter seems to be significantly higher than if you took the remainder of your guidance for 2022 and divided it by three, certainly seems to be well above that. I know that you mentioned the claims that now from LATAM that were in the revenue about, because it looked like you also had expenses that were lower than at least we were looking for. So can you kind of talk about, how to think about your guidance for the year and the level of your major kind of expense items, as we go forward?

Sure, Moshe. So we feel very confident about our guidance for the rest of the year. As you mentioned, there were some onetime items like the LATAM proceeds, that we got this quarter. First quarter, we had that mark-to-market of $36 million right on the caps. So we did have some of those things affecting it. And I think, if you look at the leasing expenses, those were a little lower because we had some maintenance events that we expected to happen in the second quarter, that now are really pushed out to the third. And that doesn't have a big impact on the adjusted numbers, but it does on GAAP. So I think it's more pronounced there. And that's another reason why, we think it makes much more sense to focus on adjusted because you don't have those -- you just have less in the way of quarterly swings, than you do on GAAP because of purchase accounting things, less volatility.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. We'll take our next question from Ross Harvey with Davy. Please go ahead.

Hi, Thanks, guys for taking the questions. I've got two. So the first one, is in relation to the Shannon engine support seems to have driven pretty strong income from cites in Q2. Just wondering, is that a fair recurring figure just given it was filed from Q4 and Q1? And secondly, I will just give my second question. In terms of the secondary market, it seems very positive just based on gain on sale the asset disposals through Q2, the margin you achieved there. Is there any qualifications you would give? And would that type of backdrop tempt you into launching a larger sales program, as was done post ILFC? Thanks.

Well maybe I'll take the first one Ross. So for SES, you're right it was higher this quarter's $33 million contribution. First quarter it was a very low contribution basically because they had some impairments that they took as a result of Russia. So that's why you really didn't see a contribution in the first quarter I think that this is closer to a run rate there. It might be -- have been a little high this quarter because there was some catch-up there. But I think you're looking more about 25% is what I would say a quarter.

And on the sales, yes, you're right. Well, we did achieve healthy margins. And certainly, as we look forward, we see the sales market as being robust. No surprise that in April/May of this quarter, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine there was a pause on buyers coming into the market but that's changed dramatically now. And we have a good few assets in the pipeline already for the second half.

Great. Thanks for time.

Sure.

All right. And our next question will come from Hillary Cacanando with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to ask you about the $35 million gain on sale. Last quarter you mentioned that legacy GCAS aircraft that were contracted to be sold prior to the acquisition were already mark-to-market and therefore there were no gains reported on those assets. Could you just see any of those legacy GCAS assets sold this quarter? And should -- are you expecting that going forward as well or no? I mean the numbers were good. So, I'm thinking maybe not but if you could kind of elaborate on that?

Actually Hillary, we did have a couple of those this quarter. So, it would have been a higher gain on sale number. It was about -- it was two assets. So, the gain on sale would have been several million dollars higher, if you didn't have that purchase accounting impact. And we will see some of that through the rest of the year. But I think what this highlighted really this quarter is, you still had a high margin even taking that into account.

Got it. And then I just wanted to ask about your helicopter business. Obviously, there's a positive momentum supporting that business. Just wanted to find out your longer-term plan for that business. Are you planning to maybe sell some of those assets to take advantage of the strong demand in the market right now or maybe to just grow the business? And also -- yes that's about it. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at the Deutsche Bank conference next month.

Thank you. On the helicopter business to answer your question, look it's going well. We're happy with the business. Clearly, we've seen an improvement in the demand for helicopters. And it's not just oil and gas. It's outside of that as well in emergency services that we do a lot of work into.

Okay. And Hillary any other questions?

That's it. Thank you very much. It was very helpful. Thanks.

All right. And we'll move on to Helane Becker with Cowen. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much operator. Hi everybody. Thanks for the time. And have you had a chance to look at the pending tax changes in the US? And would that all impact your propensity to acquire shares when the time comes?

So, we're looking at the new legislation Helane, but no I don't think that that's going to affect that. We're looking at more broadly in terms of what the implications could be. I mean I think overall and I think we've talked about this before, the movement towards the global minimum tax is likely to take our tax rate up a little bit in the future towards the -- we're now, we estimate 14% for the year. And would that go up a couple of percentage points a couple of years down the road? I think it probably would. But that's really what we're thinking the impact would be of all of this, if I think of all of the OECD countries broadly that's probably the impact that we're looking at.

I think we have to -- obviously there'll be some discount on that as well given the -- where to get through Congress to get all that done, as well at the moment. I'm not so sure that we'll see that global minimum tax rate anytime soon.

Right. Got you. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And then have you thought differently about leasing into China? And is there -- how are you thinking about that market going forward, given the issues that exist in Russia?

I think China is a very different market to Russia to be fair. You've got to realize that China makes up almost 25% of everything Boeing and Airbus sell. And we've had a great relationship with China with the airlines there. And so it doesn't represent a force anywhere near 25% of our book, but the Chinese airlines have been great partners of ours for a long time.

That's very helpful. Thank you very much.

Sure.

All right. Up next, we'll hear from Jamie Baker with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks, operator. This is James on for Jamie and Mark. I think you already mentioned it in your pared remarks, but just wondering, if your view on ordering speculative aircraft has changed at all given the ongoing shortages you mentioned strong cargo demand and international recovery, so particularly with the wide-bodies has view changed there on buying executive aircraft?

Could you just – you just broke up at the start of the question.

Oh, I'm sorry. Can you hear me now?

Yes.

I was just asking on your view on ordering speculative aircraft has that changed at all just given the strong cargo demand you mentioned and international recovery?

I think the thing about buying airplanes is buying the right airplane at the right time. If you look at AerCap's history of buying – ordering airplanes, the last major order Boeing or Airbus got at the very beginning of the pandemic was from AerCap. We had an option to exercise on 50 A320neos. Nobody was buying airplanes. That's the time to buy. If you're going to queue up outside the tent at the airshow, with every other clown, and keep ordering airplanes then you're going to overpay. You're going to get bad delivery positions. You're going to order airplanes five or six years away from the delivery date. Escalation will kill you. You want to be buying aircraft when there is a transaction that makes sense for you, and for the seller, and that there's a reasonable time frame of delivery. Telling someone you're going to buy airplanes in 2030, that's pretty crazy stuff. Its eight years away. The escalation in any contract in today's world will not be good for you. Now, we did order five 787s in a transaction with Boeing, and a customer at the airshow. These five 787s are airplanes we're highly confident in. We know there's a very strong demand for those airplanes and has been for the last two years. That's because of our global position as being the biggest player in the world. We knew, where the demand was. We knew where the customer was, and we had it all done in 24 hours. So, as I like – that that means all the aircraft replaced when we bought them.

That's great. I appreciate the color. And then just for my second question, congrats on the positive outlook at Fitch. Can you just remind me what the bogeys are from Fitch and Moody's for your leverage and to either be upgraded or placed in highs Moody's?

Sure. So, as you know, we target – our target is to have 2.7 times debt to equity and that's what we've conveyed to the rating agencies. And I think in order to get an upgrade I think that we could achieve that at that leverage target. So I don't think that, we would necessarily have to go below that target in order to do it. And really, that's because, what we have demonstrated to the rating agencies and talked to them about is the resilience that the business showed throughout COVID, plus having done the GCAS acquisition, how much stronger that's made the company. And so I think the two of those things are a pretty compelling argument for it. I think that the – if you look at what could – what are kind of the gating items I would say towards getting an upgrade I think part of that is seeing the recovery progress more globally and seeing some of the issues around Russia and things like that recede into the distance. I think that's more important. Obviously, we're going to be de-levering. You can see that, we were at 2.8 times debt to equity this quarter. We had targeted 2.7 times by the end of the year. I think we're a little ahead of schedule on that. So that's all positive. And I think we're positioned well for that to happen.

Got it. Thanks for the questions, everyone.

All right. Now we'll take a question from Ron Epstein with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. This is actually Andre on for Ron. I wanted to ask about the GE lockup period on sales. The first tranche opened up August 1. Have you guys had any conversations with those investors? Like any expectation for any sale, or any color you could provide there would be helpful? Thanks.

On that that's really a question for GE.

So you guys haven't had a conversation with those investors at all. It's all just GE.

Well, it's just GE when they decide to sell and with Quantum they decide to sell. That's -- we talk to investors of course all the time about the business. But the decision about what's going to happen with the shares is completely in the hands of GE. Our focus can only be on running the business as well as we possibly can.

Fair enough. All right.

Yeah.

I will leave at this one. Thanks, guys.

All right. And now we'll take a follow-up question from Moshe Orenbuch with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. Maybe just recognizing that your leverage did go from I think 2.94 down to 2.8 fairly close to that 2.7. You know -- and Pete, I think, you just said in the response to an earlier question that you don't really need to go below that. I mean, it seems likely that you would reach that target during Q3 -- if you haven't already. Can you just talk a little bit about what that flexibility would give AerCap?

Sure. So look I think Moshe, it is possible that we could get there earlier than we expected. As I said, we're running somewhat ahead of schedule. We'll have to see how that plays out during the rest of the course of the year. And look, obviously, I mean 2.7 is a gating item in terms of once you get there then you have capital. You're starting to create excess capital that you can deploy. And so we'll have to look at it at that point. But that would -- that obviously would give us more flexibility there. And similarly I think there was a question earlier about sales. So if we're able to do more in sales. I think I'm confident that we can get $2 billion done this year, but going forward if we can do more in the future than we had targeted. That's helpful too for that. I guess I should also say that from a balance sheet perspective we're in a very strong position now. We have a lot of liquidity as you can see. We have very low debt maturities for the rest of this year. We actually have a -- we have one bond that comes due this year and we're paying that off next week. So very little to do. I don't think we would have to do any issuance on the debt side this year. And that's really because of those limited maturities, CapEx profile of $2.2 billion for the remainder of the year and strong operating cash flow. So I think we're in a good position on all of those fronts to have more flexibility as we get towards the end of the year and into next year.

Great. Thank you.

Yes. And I'd also add to that. As Pete said we have no need to raise any funding for the remainder of the year. And indeed our interest line is pretty much fixed. The average duration of our fixed rate debt is 6.5-odd years. So that's how long 90% of our debt is fixed for.

Thanks, guys.

Sure.

Thanks, you.

And we have no additional questions in the queue. I will now turn the call back to Aengus Kelly for closing remarks.

Thank you and thank you all for joining us for the call. We look forward to seeing you shortly at the Deutsche Bank Conference in September. I'm meeting many of you there. So thank you for your time.

And this does conclude today's call. We thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect.