Get extra lift from AOPA. Start your free membership trial today! Click here
Sponsored by Aero Space Reports

Which loan is best?

Five cases for choosing an asset-based loan over a credit-based one

Considering an asset-based loan or a credit-based one for your turbine aircraft purchase? Here are several situations where you should investigate one over the other:
  1. Individuals with complicated financials. Aviation lenders must be able to clearly see the sources and timing of cash flow to understand a borrower’s debt service side of the equation in a typical credit-based loan. Having revenue streams from multiple assets often doesn’t provide such a clear understanding. A person possessing multiple assets, i.e., businesses generating revenue, might find asset-based loans a good choice.
    For example, individuals with real estate holdings usually hold them in multiple entities, complicating matters from a lender’s viewpoint. Car dealers are another example. Regardless of how well-established or profitable a car dealer is in real life, the nature of that business generally has them highly leveraged. On paper, to a bank they look like they’re carrying a lot of debt. Both examples tend to make a lot of banks hesitant to issue credit-based loans.
  2. Individuals who derive income from multiple businesses of which they may have minority or partial ownership. Conventional aircraft financiers tend to require those businesses as a guarantor on the loan. As a partial owner, you may not be able to comply with that request.
  3. Instances where a person cannot provide business recourse. An asset-based loan typically isn’t going to require business recourse.
  4. Serial entrepreneurs, or mezzanine-type financiers, who generate revenue in an uneven fashion. In other words, year-to-year their income may look sporadic, but over a three- or five-year period it has a consistent arc. Because a project has a three-year timeline, say, the amount of debt carried in the first two years may be high, but the third year could be profitable. If lenders are looking at financials a year at a time, they would reject the financials, so an asset-based loan is your best bet.
  5. People with a complicated tax and estate planning structure whose income might derive from trusts. Retired people can fall into this category too. If you don’t have traditional cash flow coming through, that’s going to be problematic. Hence, it’s worth it to consider an asset-based loan.

Asset-based loans can be done generally more quickly because lenders won’t require a full financial audit. Their concerns center around whether you’ve sued or been sued by anybody, if you have a prison record, or if you have other anomalies that might surface. [email protected]

aopafinance.org

800-62-PLANE (800-627-5263)


Adam Meredith
Adam Meredith
President of AOPA Aviation Finance Company
Adam Meredith, the longtime president of AOPA Aviation Finance Co., died after a long battle with cancer in December 2023. He is remembered for his passion for helping fellow pilots, leading a team devoted to putting flight training and aircraft ownership within everyone’s reach.
Aero-Space Reports

Aero Space Reports

Sponsor of Aviation Finance
Aero-Space Reports, a third-generation family-owned business, has been a leader in the aviation title industry for more than 45 years. In that time, they’ve seen tens of thousands of aircraft purchases: They’re all too familiar with what can go wrong, and they know exactly what it takes for things to go right.