Key members from Walkers' Global offices across the Cayman Islands, Guernsey and Ireland were delighted to attend the Airline Economics Growth Frontiers Conference in Dublin recently. Emerging from a very challenging two years for the aviation industry, the event signalled renewed optimism and provided key insights into the industry's collective road to recovery.

Core themes considered throughout the conference included:

• Recovery fuelled by resilience – despite the enormous challenges the COVID-19 pandemic presented to the aviation industry, the industry has once again proven its resilience and ability to innovate. Lessors and financiers have dynamically supported their airline customers by utilising the leasing model to provide sustainable cash flow solutions including renegotiating leases, sale-leasebacks, order and rent deferrals and power-by-the-hour contracts.
• Alternative financing – the attractiveness of alternative financing through private equity investment and the unsecured bond markets continues to grow beyond filling the asset-backed securitisation (ABS) vacuum sparked by the pandemic. Notwithstanding this, with increasing market stability, ABS looks set to make a strong and welcome return in the near future.
• Thinking green – fuel efficiency and new technology propel the climate change demands being sought by shareholders and investors. A net zero emission commitment by 2050 across the global air transport industry will certainly be challenging, however, the ambitious goal is a progressive move towards protecting the industry long-term through innovative greener infrastructure including carbon offsets, sustainable fuel, alternative technologies and improving energy efficiencies.
• Consumer driven cargo – the pandemic imposed a paradigm shift in consumer behaviour with e-commerce emerging as one of few winners driven by the sheer necessity of online shopping during lockdowns. As a consequence, air cargo demand soared in parallel with the decline of air passenger flights. The need for freight provided airlines and industry investors alike with the opportunity to quickly pivot and recover revenue lost elsewhere. As we continue to emerge from restrictions, cargo demand may have softened but e-commerce behaviours look set to stay.

One might surmise that those who left California with any significant wealth, headed for places which allowed them privacy, freedom to multiply their fortunes without interference and a good pipeline of opportunities to do so. Almost 200 years later, entrepreneurial families who have mined gold in its various forms - physical, paper or virtual – continue to seek the same characteristics when choosing a jurisdiction from which to base their future investment activities.

This thought leadership article examines why the Cayman Islands is one of the most attractive locations for UHNW individuals and families and ideal for satellite family offices and stand-alone single family offices.

READ ARTICLE

Welcome to the January – March 2022 issue of our Irish Quarterly Legal and Regulatory Developments report for asset management and investment funds. This report covers key developments during the quarter under the following headings:

• AIFMD developments;
• UCITS developments;
• Central Bank developments; and
• other legal and regulatory developments

 Click to view article

Walkers is delighted to have provided six chapters to Chambers and Partners Fintech Practice Guide 2022.

The Fintech 2022 guide covers 40 jurisdictions. The guide provides the latest legal information on sandboxes; robo-advisers; online lenders; payment processors; marketplaces, exchanges and trading platforms; high-frequency and algorithmic trading; financial research platforms; insurtech; regtech; blockchain; non-fungible tokens (NFTs); and open banking.

To view an online version of each Walkers' chapter, please select the jurisdiction below: