Photo courtesy of Air Tractor.
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Photo courtesy of Air Tractor. |
A Brazilian soybean grower needed agricultural spray aircraft. A Texas small business manufactures the turbo prop planes that fit the bill. Ex-Im Bank authorized medium-term insurance that made the transaction possible, creating and supporting jobs in Olney, Texas.
Air Tractor is an Olney-based company that employs 270 people to build its agricultural aircraft and customized equipment. The company is an experienced exporter, selling about 2,800 aircraft to buyers on six continents since 1972. Ex-Im Bank has been an important partner in this activity. Over the past 17 years, Air Tractor has utilized Ex-Im’s medium-term insurance to export approximately $100 million worth of its planes, primarily to small private-sector buyers in Argentina and Brazil.
In the FY 2012 Brazilian transaction, Ex-Im Bank’s medium-term insurance supported the export of Air Tractor’s model AT-502B, a single-engine turbo-prop aircraft custom-outfitted with a 500-gallon hopper that can be utilized for firefighting, spraying, seeding or fertilizing crops in the state of Mato Grosso.
This is one of more than 40 export sales that Ex-Im Bank has helped to finance for Air Tractor, supporting 135 jobs in production and sales management.
“The export-finance products of Ex-Im Bank have been invaluable to Air Tractor in supporting our growth in the international market over the last 15 years,” said David Ickert, chief financial officer of Air Tractor. “The Bank’s products and hard-working employees are key to our export growth and job creation.”