RIP Bonza
Administration can often bring out the best, and the worst in some. You also get a true reading of who are the nice people, and who are not!
Credit goes to Lorie and the Melbourne Airport team I will say. Came out today and said while they are a large creditor, they will take a back seat and employees, customers can take whatever they can get before them. She didn’t order anyone to clamp the aircraft down at the jet base, and waived right of payment. They also hinted they have been doing a lot behind the scenes in recent months to keep this alive.
Credit goes to Lorie and the Melbourne Airport team I will say. Came out today and said while they are a large creditor, they will take a back seat and employees, customers can take whatever they can get before them. She didn’t order anyone to clamp the aircraft down at the jet base, and waived right of payment. They also hinted they have been doing a lot behind the scenes in recent months to keep this alive.
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Good gesture
By the way Australia being a signatory to the Cape Town Convention allows a lessor or owner to recover an aircraft from a lessee and country without any restrictions.
By the way Australia being a signatory to the Cape Town Convention allows a lessor or owner to recover an aircraft from a lessee and country without any restrictions.
The Cape Town Convention is legally binding for the contracting states who signed it.
many reputable leasing companies won’t enter into leases with operators who are in countries that are not signatories
many reputable leasing companies won’t enter into leases with operators who are in countries that are not signatories
Happier times
https://www.goldcoastairport.com.au/...as-newest-base
Whilst that aphorism about canines, their wingless parasites, and co-mingling comes to mind, I'm reminded of the line from The Simpson's,
How could this happen? We started out like Romeo and Juliet but it ended up in tragedy!
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It will be interesting to see what happens with Flair here. So it’s clear that 777 was funding all the leases, simply adding it to the principle with associated high interest. Bonza was in no position to fund any lease payments, that makes sense as to why Tim Jordan was quoting 10 aircraft by the years end, simply as 777 was enabling the payments to simply add to the loan. Then that option got taken away and it was game over. However, it seemed 777 had lost its appetite for the whole thing long before its leasing portfolio switched hands.
The Everton deal looks dead, and its other airline investment will be walking the tight rope on its own now. Pretty clear they will fall off eventually, just a matter of when.
The Everton deal looks dead, and its other airline investment will be walking the tight rope on its own now. Pretty clear they will fall off eventually, just a matter of when.
A few minutes later the pilots came in and said words to the effect of, "Well, that's it. That's our last flight. We're out of a job." Within less than 30 minutes, we saw guards stationed around the aircraft to ensure it didn't escape
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A former soccer club president and a company that owns a stadium, both affiliated with Standard Liège, have joined the list of complainants filing lawsuits against 777 Partners, the embattled former minority shareholder in Flair Airlines (Edmonton) and majority shareholder in the now-insolvent Bonza (AB, Sunshine Coast).
Immobilière du Standard de Liège, was sold to 777 Partners in 2022 along with Standard Liège, a Belgian professional football club. 777 paid EUR12 million euros (USD12.9 million) for Immobilière, an entity created in 2015 that owns the club's Stade de Sclessin, with former players and former club president Bruno Venanzi holding stakes. The money was to be paid in tranches, and 777 made the first payment but defaulted on the second tranche of EUR3.5 million (USD3.75 million), due on April 15, and a separate payment for the same amount due to Venanzi on April 20.
Venanzi and Immobilière are the club's primary creditors. Both are asking for the seizure of 777’s assets in Belgium, including the shares that Venanzi gave up in 2022. When 777 Partners bought in, it promised to pump capital into the debt-ridden club. Instead, Standard was hit with transfer bans after the club failed to pay transfer fees, bonuses, VAT, and social insurance contributions.
In addition to its fast unravelling aviation interests, 777 Partners' soccer plays are also under pressure as the investment firm - which another complainant in a separate matter calls "a giant shell game at best, and an outright Ponzi scheme at worst" - struggles to make good on its financial obligations. An attempt it made to take over England's Everton Football Club has been described as a farce, and pressure is mounting on majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri not to sell.
The soccer shenanigans parallel 777's aviation woes, which culminated in Bonza going out business last week and a London-based asset management company, Leadenhall Capital, filing a writ against several 777 entities as well as Joshua Wander, Steven Pasko, and Kenneth King. Wander and Pasko are co-founders and managing partners of 777 and several other entities, while King is chairman and CEO of Advantage Capital Holdings LLC (A-Cap) as well as its primary shareholder.
"Wander and Pasko are operating a giant shell game at best, and an outright ponzi scheme at worst, that takes money in from investors and lenders and shuffles it around to various money-losing alter egos in the enterprise to disguise their true financial condition," a May 3 filing to the US District Court Southern District of New York reads. "The enterprise is propped up and able to attract new lenders and investors only by the patronage of A-Cap, which pays off the enterprise’s last-minute obligations, including 777 Partners’ own payroll, in a whack-a-mole fashion to keep 777 Partners’ creditors at bay, if only temporarily, and to avoid the entire scheme from being laid bare in public."
In addition to the Belgian and Leadenhall lawsuits, the filing notes that 777 Partners and its affiliates have been named in 16 other lawsuits collectively asking for more than USD130 million.
Ahead of the first creditor's meeting on May 10, Australia's Financial Review is citing emails between 777 Partners and A-Cap dated March 22 in which they discussed winding up Bonza. In an email, AIP Capital Managing Partner Jared Ailstock tells Kenneth King that "we are moving at full speed ahead to get out of there ASAP and wind this up." Late on April 29, 2024, AIP seized the four Bonza B737-8s managed by them on behalf of the owner, A-Cap-controlled Phoenix Aviation Capital.
AIP was 777 Partners' aircraft asset manager and was partly owned by them. It is now partly owned by A-Cap. The Financial Review reported that Ailstock inadvertently cc'd Bonza CFO Lidia Valenzuela into the email, which landed with a thud at Bonza HQ but also further undercuts Jordan's claim on the day the airline shut down that the repossessions came out of the blue. As previously reported in ch-aviation, Bonza received lease default notices on April 17. Two of those lease default notices were signed by Wander.
In recent days, all four Bonza aircraft have been assigned to a new entity, a Queensland-based entity called De Lore and Associates Pty Ltd, a company controlled by Jeremy de Lore, a former captain at China Southern Airlines (CZ, Guangzhou). De Lore's LinkedIn profile describes his current business activities as "supporting aircraft owners transitioning aircraft between operators."
In a May 7 statement, Bonza's administrator, Hall Chadwick, said it had held talks with the aircraft lessors but had "regretfully been advised that the lessors will continue to enforce their rights under the termination notices and, subject to their own requirements and arrangements, seek to reposition the fleet elsewhere." ch-aviation understands at least some of the B737-8s are going to LOT Polish Airlines (LO, Warsaw Chopin).
Immobilière du Standard de Liège, was sold to 777 Partners in 2022 along with Standard Liège, a Belgian professional football club. 777 paid EUR12 million euros (USD12.9 million) for Immobilière, an entity created in 2015 that owns the club's Stade de Sclessin, with former players and former club president Bruno Venanzi holding stakes. The money was to be paid in tranches, and 777 made the first payment but defaulted on the second tranche of EUR3.5 million (USD3.75 million), due on April 15, and a separate payment for the same amount due to Venanzi on April 20.
Venanzi and Immobilière are the club's primary creditors. Both are asking for the seizure of 777’s assets in Belgium, including the shares that Venanzi gave up in 2022. When 777 Partners bought in, it promised to pump capital into the debt-ridden club. Instead, Standard was hit with transfer bans after the club failed to pay transfer fees, bonuses, VAT, and social insurance contributions.
In addition to its fast unravelling aviation interests, 777 Partners' soccer plays are also under pressure as the investment firm - which another complainant in a separate matter calls "a giant shell game at best, and an outright Ponzi scheme at worst" - struggles to make good on its financial obligations. An attempt it made to take over England's Everton Football Club has been described as a farce, and pressure is mounting on majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri not to sell.
The soccer shenanigans parallel 777's aviation woes, which culminated in Bonza going out business last week and a London-based asset management company, Leadenhall Capital, filing a writ against several 777 entities as well as Joshua Wander, Steven Pasko, and Kenneth King. Wander and Pasko are co-founders and managing partners of 777 and several other entities, while King is chairman and CEO of Advantage Capital Holdings LLC (A-Cap) as well as its primary shareholder.
Leadenhall alleges 777 Partners is a ponzi scheme
The writ alleges the respondents pledged over USD350 million in assets (aircraft) as collateral to Leadenhall, knowing that the assets did not exist, or were not owned by the pledging entity, or had been double-pledged. In exchange for the pledges, Leadenhall provided a secured credit facility. In September 2022, the lender received a tip-off that sparked an investigation. It now alleges the respondents had been double-pledging assets as collateral to purportedly secure multiple lines of credit."Wander and Pasko are operating a giant shell game at best, and an outright ponzi scheme at worst, that takes money in from investors and lenders and shuffles it around to various money-losing alter egos in the enterprise to disguise their true financial condition," a May 3 filing to the US District Court Southern District of New York reads. "The enterprise is propped up and able to attract new lenders and investors only by the patronage of A-Cap, which pays off the enterprise’s last-minute obligations, including 777 Partners’ own payroll, in a whack-a-mole fashion to keep 777 Partners’ creditors at bay, if only temporarily, and to avoid the entire scheme from being laid bare in public."
In addition to the Belgian and Leadenhall lawsuits, the filing notes that 777 Partners and its affiliates have been named in 16 other lawsuits collectively asking for more than USD130 million.
- Change Lending LLC sued 777 Partners in January 2024 seeking USD30 million in damages for breach of contract. The complaint alleges that 777 failed to produce certain financial information to verify its financial condition and operations, thereby triggering a right for the investor to redeem its preferred equity;
- Three lessors led by Corvus Lights Aviation sued 777 Partners in December 2023 for USD30 million over missed lease payments for four aircraft;
- In July 2022, the MALT Family Trust, a shareholder in 777-controlled entity Phoenicia and board member Timothy O'Neil-Dunne, commenced legal action against 777 and one of its aviation subsidiaries, seeking damages of at least USD22 million for an alleged fraud in which the defendants allegedly used corporate entities to deprive the investor of its ownership interest in the subsidiary;
- In the same month, two lenders, Vida Longevity Fund and Obra Capital Management, sued 777 for defaulting on a USD59.7 million loan. They managed to auction off USD41.5 million in collateral, leaving an unpaid principal of over USD20 million in debt;
- Balanced Management LLC sued 777 Partners in December 2023 to recover an unpaid debt of USD11.2 million;
- In March 2024, Nakula Management Limited sued Wander and 777 Partners to stop them from transferring assets pending the finalisation of arbitration concerning a EUR9 million (USD9.7 million) debt;
- 777's landlord, 1 Madison Office Fee LLC, sued 777 Partners in September 2023 for failing to pay a USD5 million security deposit;
- In December 2023, Lasse Meilsoe sued to recover more than USD2 million from two unpaid promissory notes;
- Former 777 Partners principal Peter Meyers sued in January 2024, chasing more than USD2 million in unpaid compensation plus unspecified management interests;
- American Express Travel Related Services Company sued 777 Partners in March 2023 over USD324,009 in unpaid Amex bills;
- A former landlord sued Wander for USD150,000 in 2021 over property damage;
- In April 2023, a recruitment firm called Oxbridge sued 777 Partners for USD94,000 in unpaid bills after 777 acknowledged the debt but admitted to slow-rolling them;
- In September 2023, 777 Partners investor Timothy O'Neil-Dunne sued for the disclosure of statutory and other documents he alleged should have been provided to all members of Phoenicia's board.
- Two class actions, namely Eido Hussam Al-Nahhas v 777 Partners LLC et al., and Joseph Morgan et al. v 777 Partners LLC et al., in which 777 is a co-defendant, allege a predatory lending scheme that violates the US's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. One of the complainants states that the aggregate amount in controversy exceeds USD5 million, and both complaints seek treble damages for RICO violations.
777 Partners burns Bonza
After shopping his Bonza business plan around to multiple uninterested potential investors, founder and CEO Tim Jordan got a warmer reception at 777 Partners. After talks across 2021 and 2022, which Jordan previously told ch-aviation were conducted entirely online due to Covid travel restrictions, 777 became a majority shareholder and the principal source of aircraft and funds for Bonza. The airline operated for 15 months before folding in late April 2024.Ahead of the first creditor's meeting on May 10, Australia's Financial Review is citing emails between 777 Partners and A-Cap dated March 22 in which they discussed winding up Bonza. In an email, AIP Capital Managing Partner Jared Ailstock tells Kenneth King that "we are moving at full speed ahead to get out of there ASAP and wind this up." Late on April 29, 2024, AIP seized the four Bonza B737-8s managed by them on behalf of the owner, A-Cap-controlled Phoenix Aviation Capital.
AIP was 777 Partners' aircraft asset manager and was partly owned by them. It is now partly owned by A-Cap. The Financial Review reported that Ailstock inadvertently cc'd Bonza CFO Lidia Valenzuela into the email, which landed with a thud at Bonza HQ but also further undercuts Jordan's claim on the day the airline shut down that the repossessions came out of the blue. As previously reported in ch-aviation, Bonza received lease default notices on April 17. Two of those lease default notices were signed by Wander.
In recent days, all four Bonza aircraft have been assigned to a new entity, a Queensland-based entity called De Lore and Associates Pty Ltd, a company controlled by Jeremy de Lore, a former captain at China Southern Airlines (CZ, Guangzhou). De Lore's LinkedIn profile describes his current business activities as "supporting aircraft owners transitioning aircraft between operators."
In a May 7 statement, Bonza's administrator, Hall Chadwick, said it had held talks with the aircraft lessors but had "regretfully been advised that the lessors will continue to enforce their rights under the termination notices and, subject to their own requirements and arrangements, seek to reposition the fleet elsewhere." ch-aviation understands at least some of the B737-8s are going to LOT Polish Airlines (LO, Warsaw Chopin).
1. In the event of default as provided in Article 11, the chargee may, to the extent that the chargor has at any time so agreed and subject to any declaration that may be made by a Contracting State under Article 54, exercise any one or more of the following remedies:
(a) take possession or control of any object charged to it;
(b) sell or grant a lease of any such object;
(c) collect or receive any income or profits arising from the management or use of any such object.
(a) take possession or control of any object charged to it;
(b) sell or grant a lease of any such object;
(c) collect or receive any income or profits arising from the management or use of any such object.
As it states in the preamble, the convention deals with "the need to acquire and use mobile equipment of high value or particular economic significance and to facilitate the financing of the acquisition and use of such equipment in an efficient manner" using "asset-based financing and leasing".
No, it doesn't. Article 8, which you have quoted, refers to the rights of the Lessor to repossess their equipment when there has been an Article 11 default. It does not provide any rights to other creditors, such as airports.
As it states in the preamble, the convention deals with "the need to acquire and use mobile equipment of high value or particular economic significance and to facilitate the financing of the acquisition and use of such equipment in an efficient manner" using "asset-based financing and leasing".
As it states in the preamble, the convention deals with "the need to acquire and use mobile equipment of high value or particular economic significance and to facilitate the financing of the acquisition and use of such equipment in an efficient manner" using "asset-based financing and leasing".
A truck parked behind a parked aircraft trumps a legal right to remove it. Not forever but long enough.
Last edited by 43Inches; 12th May 2024 at 01:54.
I think Melbourne and Sydney saw the futility of it and need the parking space for actual paying customers. I remember Canberra tried this on with a QF aircraft a while back.
Yes, good corporate citizen Stephen Byron in that case wanted immediate payment, by credit card or similar, of an out of hours diversion fee for a flight that had to divert into CBR due to weather at SYD if I remember it correctly. That wasn't even covered by the airport's Conditions of Use at the time.
Last edited by MickG0105; 12th May 2024 at 02:33. Reason: Added point to save another post
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OOL/ISA/TSV are under the same owner so likely they are a bit further up the creditor list vs what you think. Regardless, the militant behaviour is childish.
Nauru is owed $1m. Jordan advised they ‘had their own work’ so they stopped servicing his flights. The guy couldn’t lie in bed.
Nauru is owed $1m. Jordan advised they ‘had their own work’ so they stopped servicing his flights. The guy couldn’t lie in bed.
It shows the risk of joining a start up, if it works out you get an early command and a very high seniority number. If it folds up you hope you got enough time on type for another job.
When Virgin Blue started, turboprop pilots were getting the LHS after about 2 years and a Brisbane base wasn’t too hard to snag. A new joiner these days is looking at about a decade for an upgrade and will be spending much of it in Melbourne with a few more years back there as a skipper before BNE becomes available.
When Virgin Blue started, turboprop pilots were getting the LHS after about 2 years and a Brisbane base wasn’t too hard to snag. A new joiner these days is looking at about a decade for an upgrade and will be spending much of it in Melbourne with a few more years back there as a skipper before BNE becomes available.