Hard lessons help AerCap boss Kelly rebuild air finance titan

AerCap absorbs number two GECAS in $30 billion deal

Aengus Kelly, CEO of AerCap completed a dramatic 25-year turnaround with a $30bn acquisition of GECAS.

When Irishman Aengus Kelly got his first job in aircraft leasing in 1996 it was with a firm so down on its luck the American giant General Electric had an option to buy it for one dollar.

Three years earlier, GE had taken over the jewels of ruined Irish leasing empire Guinness Peat Aviation for $1.3bn and renamed it GECAS, while the discarded rump that hired the young accountant Kelly was left with GPA's "bad assets."