ICBC Leasing inks deal with Hungarian airline

ICBC Financial Leasing Co Ltd and Wizz Air Group announced on Thursday that they had entered into a pre-delivery payment financing, sale and leaseback agreement for eight new Airbus A320 aircraft, marking the start of cooperation between China and Hungary in the aircraft leasing sector.

The list value of the deal is $700 million and the aircraft are due to be delivered in 2013 and 2014. The first three will be delivered next week, Jozsef Varadi, chief executive officer of Wizz Air, told China Daily.

"We are pleased with the cooperation with ICBC Leasing, the market leader in China. I believe the Chinese financial leasing market will play an increasingly important role in the world," said Varadi.

"This deal is one of the largest ones between the two nations in recent years and it is the start of cooperation," said Yang Kaisheng, president of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd.

"As the aircraft sector is an important support and weather vane of the global economy, ICBC and ICBC Leasing will continue to provide aircraft leasing services."

ICBC Leasing is one of the biggest leasing companies in China. It was established in 2007 as a wholly owned subsidiary of ICBC serving as the leasing arm of ICBC with 94 owned and managed aircraft in its portfolio. ICBC Leasing is headquartered in Tianjin, with offices in Beijing and Dublin.

Wizz Air is the largest budget airline in Central and Eastern Europe, operating a fleet of 40 Airbus A320 aircraft from 16 bases with more than 270 routes connecting 93 destinations across 32 countries.