About

Catherine Power, general counsel at Seraph Aviation Management, was admitted to the roll of solicitors in Ireland in December 2011, and at the beginning of February 2012 joined Volito Aviation Services Ireland as contract administrator of the Swedish company in Ireland. Power was promoted to corporate counsel in May 2013, and at that time, she was the sole lawyer in the Dublin office and managed a large number of aircraft lease and sale transactions and had responsibility for the corporate governance of the Irish group companies. During this time Volito Aviation was tasked with selling down the VGS aircraft portfolio on behalf of its shareholders and she was heavily involved in running many of these transactions. Power was also heavily involved in the sale of Volito Aviation to Stellwagen in October 2015 including the due diligence process, review of contracts and disclosures. Following the sale to Stellwagen in October 2015, Power was promoted to general counsel of Seraph Aviation Management, formerly Volito Aviation Services Ireland, and also promoted to the management team. In this role, she leads and has responsibility for the legal and contracts management function in Seraph and provides legal support to the Stellwagen Group. She manages transactions for clients from letter of intent negotiation through the documentation phase to closing including liaising with all transaction stakeholders. Over the years, she has served as a director for a number of the Stellwagen Group companies and also for third-party clients. Through supporting the requirements of Stellwagen Finance (formerly AFC), Power has gained extensive experience in aviation finance transactions and ran a large number of sale lease back transactions with Emirates. She highlights that, ‘the most notable of these was the sale and lease back of a B777 aircraft which involved a Korean equity party, an Islamic financing structure with a junior debt facility provided by a Middle Eastern bank and three senior Spanish lenders who had never done such a financing deal before. The deal was done to a very tight timeframe and involved intensive negotiation and management of the multiple parties. Stellwagen was grown rapidly as a company with a large number of new employees in a short timeframe’. In 2019, Power ran the re-financing of two narrow body aircraft on lease with a Korean and Russian lessee and financing and acquisition of two narrow body aircraft on lease with an Indonesian lessee. She highlights that, ‘we had one week to commence documentation and close the four financings which was achieved late on the Friday night. The pace of this transaction makes it one of the most notable transactions that I have worked on in the last number of years and it was an incredible achievement to close’.