Post acquisition, the Wells Fargo operation will be called Intertrust Corporation Limited and will be bound into Intertrust’s capital markets service line led by global head of capital markets Cliff Pearce.

Pearce said the firm had seen significant growth in the aviation sector over the last decade and conditions were particularly good in Asia-Pacific, where higher levels of economic growth and a rising middle class are fuelling an appetite for travel. He added that investment appetite was also strong. “Macroeconomic conditions are increasingly pushing investors towards less volatile asset classes and aircraft leasing provides fixed incomes over long periods, offering investors predictable and consistent earnings,” Pearce said.

The group said that the purchase was also part of scaling up ahead of industry changes under the new Global Aircraft Trading System (GATs), the worldwide electronic system buyers and sellers use to trade aircraft and lease engines.

Intertrust provides aviation finance services from Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Cayman Isands covering finance and leasing across commercial aircraft, corporate jets, helicopters and engines.

We look at the world of private aviation occasionally – and plan a major feature on all aspects of this market in coming days – because these travel options are used by ultra-high net worth individuals and the sector is also a specialist investment field for organisations such as family offices. The state of the private aviation market is also a useful measure of how cautious or not UHNW individuals are with their finances and how much they care about their image. (Here is an article from an expert on aviation finance issues.)