HI Uplift: RIVE aims for €2.4bn in assets ‘within four years’

Firefighting is an underserved market, says RIVE. (Photocredit: Shutterstock).

The trouble with targets is as soon as you hit one, another is quick to follow. Over the summer, RIVE Private Investment exceeded €1.2bn ($1.4bn) in assets under management. Now the company is aiming to double that within the next four years.

So where will the lender find growth on this scale? That question was my first mistake. “RIVE provides structured leasing solutions, not lending capabilities – which is very different,” explains Camille Brunel, partner with RIVE Private Investment.

The group finances assets dedicated to transportation and energy transition, which includes providing equity financing through leasing as part of its overall investment strategy. It acts as an investment firm that manages funds for institutional and family office investors.

“That’s one of the differentiating factors when you compare us to lessors and lenders,” he tells us. “Unlike lenders and banks, we take the residual value risk, but we also provide a financing structuring tailor-made for the customer.”

Financed more than 600 assets

RIVE’s energy transition business focuses on supporting the switch to clean energies such as solar power, batteries and energy generation from wind. The transport group – spanning aviation, rail and maritime – has financed 600-plus assets in more than 20 (OECD) countries. The transport accounts for about two thirds of RIVE’s business with energy transition accounting for the remainder.

Its investment strategy of acquiring and leasing transportation assets enables the business to provide investors with an attractive risk profile investment solution combining capital appreciation and yield generation, it claims. “These assets benefit from long lifespan, low depreciation rate and high visibility on residual values, while generating recurring yield thanks to the regular stream of predictable cash flows which quickly de-risks the investment,” according to RIVE.

Within aviation, the business focuses on helicopters and aircraft dedicated to medical and safety missions. For helicopters, the bulk of the business comes from the familiar three-letter acronyms of EMS (emergency medical services) and SAR (search and rescue) plus serving offshore wind markets and firefighting.

But the business still retains interests in oil and gas – because “you cannot be in the helicopter leasing business if you have no exposure at all to the oil and gas”.

‘Asset-generating cash flows’

Brunel summarises the benefits of investing in aviation like this: “It’s a worldwide diversified ecosystem we are familiar with, it has good asset-generating cash flows, not so many manufacturers and a slow pace of technological change.”

Short contracts also offer challenges with the firefighting sector. “At present contracts in the firefighting segment tend to be too short compared with investment required to service them,” explains Brunel. “Changing that depends on lobbying local authorities and that takes a lot of time to bring about change.”

Set against that, firefighting helicopters are often deployed after their primary life missions and don’t need to be “brand-new, shiny assets”. That means they can be acquired at lower cost to helicopters serving other sectors, particularly as small helicopters are deployed in this role.

More importantly (and tragically) demand for firefighting assets is rising inexorably as global temperatures warm and the formerly distinct firefighting seasons in the northern and southern hemisphere merge into one 12-monthlong omni season.

‘Longer underlying contracts’

“The firefighting market is completely underserved compared to the increasing needs,” Brunel tells us. “So, we believe we could do more and better if the contracts were longer. Also, we could potentially invest in new assets or younger assets, backed by longer underlying contracts.”

To serve demand, RIVE is active in retrofitting helicopters with upgraded engines. Typically, this consists of T2 Safran engine upgrades on models such as the Airbus Helicopters H135. In addition to extending the working life of assets, RIVE is also active in dispatching them by parting out engines.

While RIVE’s main aviation interests focus on helicopters, it also invests in fixed-wing aircraft for emergency missions, engines (mostly for fixed-wing aircraft), auxiliary power units (APUs) and flight simulators.

Engine investments

Engine investments, particularly for turboprop fixed-wing aircraft, are building into a strong business, while flight simulators remain more niche, he tells us. (RIVE owns a company dedicated to providing training services).

Earlier this month, RIVE sold a portfolio of 14 aircraft dedicated to medical missions in Norway and Spain to MONTE Global Asset Management.

Ethical is an important word for RIVE. Not just because sustainability is in everyone’s interest but because it also offers long-term revenue generation compared with shorter life projects, such as investing in coal-fired power stations.

“We believe that when you invest in an asset which is providing either social benefits or environmental benefits in the long term, you have kind of a premium over the other assets,” says Brunel. One example is investing in assets with lower energy needs, and therefore lower operating costs, than conventional assets.

Critical missions

To exploit this opportunity in 2021, the company launched its RIVE Transportation Assets Income Fund (RTAIF), an evergreen fund investing in assets contributing to the decarbonisation of the transportation sector and meet key needs such as critical missions in aviation, railway rolling stock and specialised maritime. In June 2025, RTAIF had deployed over €350m in more than 10 countries. This figure will rise to €500m within nine months, says Brunel.

Meanwhile, Brunel is optimistic about the prospects for growth. “After RIVE was founded in 2013, we have almost tripled the size of the business in the past six years,” he says.

Brunel is convinced RIVE’s expertise in financing critical transportation assets meets the increasing need for decarbonisation in transportation. Plus, by focusing on OECD markets, the business offers investors access to resilient assets that generate stable and predictable returns while addressing major environmental and societal challenges, he claims.

Just remember not to call RIVE Private Investment a lender.

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HI Uplift Dashboard: Helicopters for sale

Multi engine

• Total for sale/lease: 272 – two more than last week
• Percentage for sale/lease: 3.58%
• Absorption rate: 3.91 months
• Total fleet: 7,608 – eight more than last week.

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Single engine

• Total for sale/lease: 436 – four more than last week
• Percentage for sale/lease: 3.746%
• Absorption rate: 3.71 months
• Total fleet: 11,666 – seven more than last week.

 Source: AMSTAT, October 23th, 2025.