Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, TCR is the largest independent lessor of airport ground support equipment (“GSE”).

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Overview

TCR operates at more than 230 airports across more than 20 countries. Since inception, TCR has defined the market for leased GSE, providing high quality assets and a full service leasing, maintenance and fleet management offering to its clients, which are predominantly independent ground handling companies, airlines and airports. This enables GSE operators to concentrate on their core business of ground handling.

Why we invested

We were attracted to TCR due to its good asset backing, strong market position and barriers to entry.

GSE is a scarce resource that is critical to the functioning of an airport. Through first mover advantage, TCR has benefited from securing the largest independent GSE fleet in Europe. TCR has access to maintenance workshops in prime locations at airports, many of which are located airside, enabling the company to provide a high quality maintenance and asset management service, which results in high availability of TCR’s fleet. The company is also able to offer full-service rentals on a pan-European basis, thereby matching the footprints of its customers.

Outsourcing ownership of GSE equipment makes economic sense for independent ground handlers, as it allows them to manage the mismatch between short-term handling contracts and the typically 10-15 year useful life of equipment. TCR’s rental contracts are aligned with the ground handlers’ contracts with the airlines and are typically 3-5 years in duration; TCR experiences a high level of contract renewal.

The business has a diversified portfolio and is present at over 230 airports across 20 countries with a diverse contract and customer base. The investment in TCR provides exposure to the long-term growth in the aviation market, which is fundamentally GDP driven, yet it is expected to be insulated from short-term shocks to demand due to its exposure to aircraft movements rather than passenger numbers.

Recent developments

TCR performed strongly over the year, supported by strong commercial momentum and robust demand for its GSE leasing solutions, alongside disciplined operational delivery.

The broader market backdrop remained favourable. Aviation activity continued to underpin demand for GSE full service leasing, while the decarbonisation tailwind created additional demand for TCR’s electric GSE and pooling solutions, and accelerated progress of new solutions for its customers such as eGSE charging-as-a-service.

During the year, TCR secured a number of contract wins across its global network and is progressing plans to enter new countries across Asia and America.

It continued to pursue selective M&A opportunities globally and agreed a €100 million upsize of its revolving credit facility to support further growth. In addition, TCR’s GHG emission reduction targets were validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (‘SBTi’) during the period, marking an important milestone in its sustainability strategy.

The Company initiated a sale process of TCR during the year, which concluded with the signing of the sale of the business to Global Infrastructure Partners on 4 March 2026.