Apex AeroVentures Global Aviation Business Plan — Funding Requirement & Capital Structure

Sources and uses

Uses	R m	Sources	R m
Initial aircraft fleet	250	Aircraft-finance debt	170
Maintenance hangar & facilities	45	Equity	250
Ground support equipment	18
Operations centre & IT systems	20
Training academy	15
Working capital	40
Marketing & brand launch	8
Regulatory certification & insurance	9
Contingency	15
Total	420	Total	420

Figure 18. *Use of funds across the R420m raise.*

Figure 19. *Capital expenditure phasing (post-launch).*

Capital structure and the funding programme

The R420 million is structured as R170 million of aircraft-finance debt, secured against the initial fleet at roughly 12.75%, and R250 million of equity, a conservative gearing appropriate to a start-up operator. This funds Phase 1–2: the launch fleet, maintenance and operations infrastructure, the training academy, certification and working capital. Scaling to the Year-5 revenue then requires the fleet to grow, financed principally by additional aircraft debt drawn as aircraft are acquired (self-collateralising), complemented by reinvested cash and modest follow-on equity.

Debt service and covenant headroom

Credit metric	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Year 5
Aircraft-finance debt (R m)	170	249	347	436	520
Debt service (R m)	21.7	59.6	82.9	104.2	124.4
DSCR (x)	1.29×	0.97×	1.25×	1.54×	1.91×
Interest cover (x)	1.3×	1.7×	2.1×	2.6×	3.3×
Net debt / EBITDA (x)	3.7×	3.8×	3.0×	2.5×	2.0×

Figure 20. *Aircraft-finance debt and debt-service cover.*

Analyst flagYear-2 debt-service cover dips below 1.0× — reserves are essential

At the peak of the fleet build-out, Year-2 debt-service cover falls to about 0.97× as debt scales ahead of the utilisation ramp, before strengthening to roughly 1.9× by Year 5. This is a covenant-and-liquidity issue, not a solvency one, but it must be managed structurally, through a debt-service reserve account, a grace or interest-only period on the initial tranche, covenant headroom, and the committed follow-on equity already built into the plan. Lenders should size facilities and covenants to this profile.

Recommended structure

A committed, staged capital programme, initial R420m plus committed follow-on aircraft-debt and equity facilities sized to the true peak funding need of the fleet ramp, not the first phase alone.
A debt-service reserve account and a grace / interest-only period on the initial tranche to bridge the Year-2 cover trough.
Contract-backed aircraft finance, using signed mission-critical contracts as security to lower the cost and raise the availability of aircraft debt.
Selective use of operating leases to add capacity without funding every aircraft outright, protecting the balance sheet during the ramp.