Profile
Robert has over 30 years of experience in the banking and commercial aviation market, with significant experience and an impressive track record financing mid-life and end-of-life aircraft through multiple industry cycles. Prior to co-founding volofin, Robert served for twenty years as the global Head of Aerospace Finance at Erste Group Bank AG, a post he held since founding the team in 1998. He has extensive experience structuring aircraft and engine-backed financing transactions for investors, leasing companies and airlines. He was one of the first lenders to develop a unitranche lending product (combining senior and mezzanine exposure, and often retaining a residual participation), based on a deep knowledge of the underlying collateral. The team sourced and structured well over $1 billion of these specialist loans. In 2008, he set up a Maltese subsidiary (Gladiator Leasing), owned by the Erste Group Bank, to fund opportunistic transactions for customers with insufficient capital to hold ownership themselves. He and his team originated and financed investments for this entity involving more than 20 aircraft that in aggregate have yielded significant residual profits. Prior to joining Erste Group Bank, Robert held positions of increasing responsibility at Daiwa Bank, where he originated and structured leveraged tax lease transactions for major airlines, and Erste Group Bank’s predecessor, GiroCredit Bank, where he was hired to stem losses from a legacy portfolio during the period following the Gulf War. He started his career at Credit Suisse First Boston in 1986. Robert earned a Bachelor of Science degree (with honours) from the University of London, and an MBA from the Warwick Business School, UK.Sessions