ISTAT Jetrader - Spring 2023 - 14

PERSPECTIVES
My very first company, IAMG, was not a grand plan. I didn't sit down and have
an entrepreneurial moment and say I'm going to start an advisory company. I overplayed
my hand, and I got called out on it. Another lesson learnt.
bank, but we basically advised airlines
on how to restructure and reduce costs,
and we got a piece of the savings. That
became a very significant business in
terms of the numbers of transactions.
In the year 2000, we arranged over $1
billion of financing.
Jetrader: What triggered your
move from an independent IAMG to
creating a bank-owned RBS Aviation
Capital and then leaving it?
DS: After seven years of getting IAMG
to where it was, I had a yearning to
get back into the principal business.
Being an adviser is great, but you don't
14 * THE OF F I C I AL PUBL I CAT I ON OF ISTAT
know what's going to happen quarter to
quarter. You have no balance sheet. My
DNA was GPA, having the balance sheet
and being a principal. At that stage, by
2001, the aircraft leasing industry was
growing rapidly. It wasn't a mainstream
product, but it was becoming more
prevalent in the makeup of how airlines
thought about financing aircraft. In
December 2000, I went on a roadshow
with my colleague Denis Hogan in
London. We went to see about six or
seven banks, pitching our services as
" If you've got any aircraft issues, call
us. " One of the banks we went in to
see was the Royal Bank of Scotland.
RBS had just acquired a major British
bank called NatWest. Prior to that, RBS
was effectively a local regional bank
in Scotland, and now, suddenly, it's a
major player. The CEO at the time, Fred
Goodwin, had aspirations to build RBS
into the biggest bank in the world. So,
we went to see them. They called us
back about two weeks later and said,
" We don't want to hire you; we want to
buy you. " At its core was simplicity: we
had the IP, all the knowledge; they had
the balance sheet, and we would put
the two together.
Out of that became the startup
within the bank. That was my first
ISTAT Jetrader - Spring 2023

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