IBA Group

Overview

IBA Group is an aviation intelligence and advisory firm headquartered at Leatherhead in Surrey, England. Established in 1988 as the International Bureau of Aviation, IBA provides independent expert business analysis to the aviation industry, combining aircraft market data, valuations and appraisals with technical, commercial and asset management services. Its proprietary data platform, IBA Insight, draws on more than thirty-five years of aviation data, and its team includes ISTAT-certified appraisers whose valuations are used in aircraft financing, leasing and investment decisions around the world.

The group's clients span the aviation investment chain: airlines and other operators, aircraft lessors, banks and other financiers, manufacturers, investors and lawyers. IBA advises them across the complete life of an aviation asset, from an aircraft's order and delivery, through lease management and day-to-day operation, to redelivery, remarketing and sale.

Founding and History

IBA was established in 1988 to provide independent expert business analysis to the aviation industry. It began as the International Bureau of Aviation at a time when aircraft were becoming a global financial asset class, traded and leased across borders by institutions that needed impartial valuations and technical advice from a firm that neither bought, sold nor financed aircraft itself. Independence was, and remains, the foundation of its offer: its opinions on value are relied on precisely because it has no stake in the transaction.

From its Surrey base the firm grew with the leasing market it served. As operating leasing came to account for a large share of the world's airliner fleet, demand grew for appraisals, lease management, technical inspections and market intelligence, and IBA developed a linked range of services covering investment, finance, valuations, management, operations and maintenance. It became a member of ISTAT, the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading, and built a team of certified appraisers qualified to produce valuation reports and studies for the industry's most complex transactions.

Valuations and Appraisals

Valuation is IBA's best-known discipline. Its appraisers provide independent, impartial opinions on the value of a wide range of asset types, including commercial aircraft, engines, helicopters, freighters and air cargo assets, landing slots and spare parts. These opinions support investment and lending decisions: a bank financing an aircraft, a lessor placing one with an airline, or an investor buying a portfolio of leased aircraft all need a defensible view of what the assets are worth now and what they may be worth in the future.

IBA's standing in this field has been recognised by industry awards, including being named Appraiser of the Year 2018 by Airline Economics. Its published commentary on aircraft values, lease rates and market trends — on subjects from the effect of new aircraft models on the values of their predecessors to the availability of spare engines — is widely reported in the aviation trade press, and its analysts are regular speakers and commentators on the state of the aircraft market.

IBA Insight and Data Services

The group's data business is built around IBA Insight, its aviation intelligence platform, which gives subscribers access to the fleet, values, lease rate and market data accumulated over more than thirty-five years of tracking the industry. Subscribers can follow individual aircraft and fleets, compare values, examine lease terms and analyse market movements, using the same underlying data that IBA's own consultants use in their advisory work. Earlier generations of the platform were marketed under names including IBA.iQ, and IBA has long published reference works on aircraft values and lease rates for the industry.

Data and advisory reinforce each other in IBA's model. Appraisal assignments deepen the dataset; the dataset makes appraisals and forecasts more robust; and published analysis drawn from the platform demonstrates the firm's expertise to prospective clients. As in other intelligence industries, the long time series is itself a competitive asset, because the value of an aircraft type can only be judged against how it and its predecessors performed through previous market cycles.

Advisory, Technical and Asset Management Services

Beyond valuations, IBA provides specialist expertise to help clients plan, purchase, monitor and manage aviation investment assets across the whole deal cycle. Its advisory work covers fleet and operational questions, market analysis, risk management and litigation support, in which its experts provide evidence on aircraft values and industry practice. Its consulting services extend to regulatory advice and training for industry professionals.

Its technical services cover the physical life of the aircraft. IBA's in-house experts can inspect fixed and rotary wing aircraft at every stage of the asset cycle — pre-purchase inspections before an acquisition, mid-lease reviews during a lease, and inspections before an aircraft is returned at the end of a lease — as part of due diligence and asset protection. Technical and engine management services help owners and operators manage maintenance, which for modern widebody aircraft such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 involves heavy maintenance programmes whose cost and timing materially affect an aircraft's value. Asset management services then oversee leased aircraft day to day, monitoring their condition, utilisation and compliance until redelivery and remarketing.

Clients and Market Position

IBA advises a broad mix of aviation-focused operators, lessors, manufacturers, financiers and lawyers, in both commercial and business aviation. Corporate aircraft and helicopters form a distinct part of its practice, advising owners, buyers and lenders on the acquisition, specification and management of business jets and helicopters, where values and operating arrangements differ from the commercial airline market.

Within the small international community of aviation appraisal and advisory firms, IBA is one of the longest-established independent names. Its market position rests on the combination of ISTAT-certified appraisers, proprietary long-run data, and a service range that allows a client to use one firm for valuation, technical oversight and asset management across a transaction and the years of ownership that follow.

Geographic Scope

Although headquartered at IBA House in Leatherhead, IBA works globally. It has offices in Ireland, the United States, China and Hong Kong in addition to its Surrey headquarters, reflecting the geography of aircraft finance and leasing, in which Ireland is a global leasing hub and Asia-Pacific and North America are central markets. Its inspections, valuations and advice cover aircraft and clients on every continent, and its data platform tracks the world's commercial fleets.

Digital Presence and Publications

IBA's digital presence centres on iba.aero, which presents its services, its Insight platform and its market commentary. The firm publishes analysis and forecasts — on fleet growth, engine leasing, values and lease rates — that are carried by aviation trade media and presented at industry conferences, and it maintains a professional presence on LinkedIn and other channels where its analysts comment on market developments. Its webinars and briefings for clients translate platform data into forward-looking views on specific aircraft types, regions and market segments.

Market Commentary and Forecasting

IBA's analysts regularly publish forward-looking assessments of the aviation market drawn from its data, and these forecasts form part of its public profile as an intelligence provider. Its published work has examined, among other questions, whether the engine leasing market could meet demand for spare engines and parts, how competition among lessors and the reliability of older aircraft were sustaining residual values, and how assumptions about aircraft depreciation, residual values and useful economic lives have shifted over the thirty-five years since the firm was founded. Such commentary serves two purposes: it gives clients and the wider market an evidence-based view of where values and supply are heading, and it demonstrates, in public, the depth of the data and judgement that sit behind the firm's confidential appraisal and advisory work.

Significance

IBA Group exemplifies the intelligence businesses that grew up around the financialisation of aviation. As aircraft became assets held by lessors and investors as much as by airlines, the industry needed trusted, independent measurement of what those assets are worth and how they are being looked after. From Leatherhead, IBA has supplied that measurement since 1988, and its valuations, data and technical oversight now sit quietly behind a substantial volume of the world's aircraft trading, leasing and financing activity.