Acquisition #1 – Bond Aviation Group sold to INAER’s private equity owners

Acquisition #1 – Bond Aviation Group sold to INAER’s private equity owners

28-Mar-2011 Source: HeliHub.com

Bond Aviation Group, the UK company encompassing the onshore operator Bond Air Service and its sister company Bond Offshore Helicopters, is set to be sold by Stephen and Peter Bond for a figure thought to be around £300 million (approx $480M).  The buyers are the two private equity groups that own Spanish operator INAER, which is 51% owned by Investindustrial and 49% by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.  This follows an announcement in November 2010 that the owning family had hired NM Rothschild as advisers to look at strategic options for the business, with the expectation at that time that they were willing to sell between 30 and 60% of the business. This week it appears that the whole group is to be sold, and will continue operations under the Bond names and operated alongside INAER. The most recently available annual accounts show the group with a turnover of £91.3M and pre-tax profits of £22M.  It also had net debts of £112.9M at the end of March 2010.

Bond is split into two primary areas, Bond Air Services, operating EC135s and a handful of Bo105s  for the police and air ambulance sectors, plus some individual contacts supporting lighthouses and windfarms.  Bond Offshore Helicopters operates EC225s, AS332L2s and AS365N3s on the North Sea and the Irish Sea, and is soon to be introducing their first AW139 to the operational fleet.  The first aircraft, leased from Era Helicopters and still in their colours, has been conducting pilot type conversions out of Norwich Airport in the last week in preparation for their contract with Perenco.

The Bond brothers are expected to continue with the business for an agreed minimum period of time, in a move with closely matches the sale of their original Bond Helicopters group 15 years ago to CHC.  The most recent “Rich List” for the UK, published 11 months ago, estimates the Bond family worth at £151M.

To check out other information on the Bond companies, click on the links in the Tags at the foot of this article

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