Airplanes Group, a special purpose company set up by GPA Group in 1996, has said it plans a public bond offering of $2.4 billion (£1.76 billion) to refinance part of its existing debt.

Airplanes, which hopes to place the bonds with a mixture of European and US institutions, will market the bonds from Monday and price them on March 9th. It hopes to have the offering completed by March 16th, when part of its existing debt will be repaid in full.

Airplanes will use the net proceeds of the offering to refinance four of the eight tranches of its debt, including an outstanding $850 million of sub-class A-1 certificates which amortise in March.

The company is also taking advantage of good market conditions to refinance $750 million of sub-class A-2 certificates and $500 million of A-3 certificates whose call premiums expire in March. Some $337 million of class B certificates will also be refinanced at a lower spread, Airplanes said.

Four tranches totalling some $1.1 billion are not being refinanced, GPA group treasurer Mr Paul Farrell said.

Airplanes proposes issuing $850 million of sub-class A-6 certificates with an expected final payment date of January 15th, 2004; $500 million of sub-class A-7 certificates with a final payment date of March 15th, 2001; $750 million of sub-class A-8 certificates whose expected final payment date is March 15th, 2003; and $337 million of new class B certificates with a final payment date of March 15th, 2009.

Morgan Stanley will act as lead manager on the offering, while Salomon, Smith Barney and Lehman will act as co-managers.

Airplanes was set up by GPA two years ago to allow the Shannon-based aircraft leasing company to restructure its debt. GPA sold 229 aircraft into the special purpose company for $4.5 billion and Airplanes issued bonds secured against the aircraft to investors in Europe, the US and Japan to finance this.