“We are thrilled to have Kompass Kapital join the Airshare ownership group and strongly believe its investment will have a material impact on our future,” said John Owen, CEO, Airshare.

“Kompass’ reputation is impeccable, and their track record in helping businesses flourish is well known. Additionally, they have already demonstrated great success in partnering with our legacy ownership group through other investments.”

Airshare has grown significantly in recent months. After acquiring Wheels Up aircraft management business last year, the company nearly doubled in size and now operates almost 150 aircraft. The aviation company’s current fleet comprises of 14 Phenom 300s and seven Challenger 3500s. 

Airshare offers a variety of private aviation services, including aircraft management, charter flights, and fractional ownership programs.

“We are very excited to partner with Airshare, where we join a talented team dedicated to serving the private aviation needs of business and leisure customers both domestically and internationally,” said Bradley Berger, managing partner, Kompass Kapital.

Jefferies acted as exclusive financial advisor to Airshare. Lathrop GPM served as legal counsel to Airshare, and Spencer Fane served as legal counsel to Kompass Kapital.

The post Kompass Kapital announces investment in Airshare appeared first on Corporate Jet Investor.

Greg Raiff, founder and CEO said: “We believe there is space in the industry for an established platform, one that is focused on servicing the client first. This investment affirms that commitment. It enables us to scale our business by expanding our infrastructure and adding experienced industry professionals to grow our fully integrated aviation services platform further.”

Randy McKinney, president, Elevate Aviation Group added that each of the Elevate Aviation Group business units is benefiting from the investment. “Our client-first focus provides a disciplined approach around systems and processes, all designed to support our talented team members with quality and speed when delivering the best client solutions in the business,” he said.

Elevate plans to prioritise recruitment in client-facing roles across its business units and continue to expand its footprint with the opening of new offices and destinations for MRO services. The investment will enable the group to expand its team across charter, management and aircraft brokerage, said Jon Reed, chief sales officer. Based in New York City, Reed also revealed the company’s plan to open an office in Manhattan later this year.

Elevate Aviation Group said its investment was coming at a time “when competitors are making headlines each week for significant shifts in business strategy and structure at the potential expense of customer service”.

Established in 2003, provides an integrated aviation services platform focusing on air transport, travel consultancy and aircraft management services to what it describes as leading figures in business, sports, entertainment, government and higher education.

Meanwhile, read how Raiff affirmed plans to grow Elevate Aviation Group last year in a feature published by sister title Corporate Jet Investor Quarterly.

The post Elevate Aviation Group to invest $10m in growth plan appeared first on Corporate Jet Investor.

The SaaS aircraft records platform for private aviation experienced triple-digit growth in 2022, with 600M+ in aircraft records managed, and a growing customer base of operators. Bluetail will use the additional funds to expand and scale its market presence, introduce new products and integrations, and release further automation enhancements, it said.

Jason Pressman, VC in residence, AZ-VC, said: “Despite the wildfire spread of software during the 21st century, some pen-and-paper industries are still absent of modern solutions, private aviation included. Bluetail is redefining aviation records management with a cloud platform that is a true 10x solution. We are eager to support the founder’s ascension as they bring innovative solutions to an industry that is primed for disruption.”

This latest funding comes in addition to a previously announced round of $2.1m from Brookstone VC and a number of angel investors.

Roberto Guerrieri, CEO of Bluetail, said: “We are extremely proud that AZ-VC has recognised the value of our significant market growth, expansion of the aircraft records software category, and our unlimited potential as the business aviation industry continues to see the ROI benefits of our platform and digital scanning services.”

The post Bluetail closes an additional $2.2m Series A investment  appeared first on Corporate Jet Investor.

Genstar, with $35bn under management, has bought out some of GTCR’s stake in the company. This is Genstar’s first business aviation deal.

“Genstar invests in four areas – financial services, software, industrials and healthcare – and we are their only investment which touches on three of these,” Neil Book, CEO, JSSI tells CJI. “It also means they have expertise that we can use to grow.”

Terms are not being disclosed but GTCR, which is keeping a stake, is likely to have got a good return. JSSI has seen large top and bottom-line growth in the past two years.

Although it has acquired two maintenance tracking software companies – SierraTrax and Traxxall – most of this growth has come organically from its maintenance programme and parts and leasing.

“We now track 3,500 aircraft tails through our software platform, giving us fantastic visibility on upcoming maintenance events, feeding our hourly maintenance programmes and parts and leasing businesses,” says Book.

GTCR understands business aviation well. It bought FBO company Landmark Aviation in March 2008 at the top of the business aviation market and managed to sell it for a profit in 2012. (Landmark was later sold to Signature Aviation which was taken private last year for $4.5bn). GTCR also acquired maintenance tracking company CAMP Systems which was sold to Hearst in 2016. It is also an investor in connectivity company Gogo.

“Since our investment in 2020 we have worked closely with Neil to accelerate JSSI’s growth,” said Craig Bondy, MD, GTCR. “Genstar’s investment is a testament to the hard work of the JSSI team and the value proposition they deliver to customers.”

With more than $10bn of private equity invested in business aviation, 2021 was a record one. This year has not seen the same volume but is still set to be above average. In his excellent CJI Miami presentation Kenn Ricci, chair, Directional Aviation, said that there have been 92 private equity investments in business jet operators in the past five years (you can watch it here).

Book adds: “This investment from a top private equity firm demonstrates their confidence in the business aviation market.”

The post JSSI shows private equity still likes private aviation appeared first on Corporate Jet Investor.

But they don’t normally focus on the same things as business aviation – let’s call it FBO Drive – where customers buy charter, fractional shares or aircraft. But now there is a big disconnect between FBO Drive and the others.

General Dynamics, the parent company of Gulfstream, and Textron Aviation both revealed strong financial results for the third quarter last week. Bombardier will do the same this week. But so did Amazon – a key company for both Wall Street and Main Street.

The Everything Store’s results were below Wall Street expectations but not awful. Whilst it may be good at next day delivery, its financial forecasting seems less precise. The online retailer had net income of $3.5bn in the last three months of 2021. It is now saying it could make anything between $4bn and $0 before this year end. Amazon says it saw demand fall towards the end of the quarter and its international revenues have been hit by the strong dollar.

So far, business jet manufacturers – on FBO Drive – have not seen this.

“Despite apparent macroeconomic headwinds, we continue to experience a strong level of interest, good activity and a replenishing pipeline. Certainly, demand in the quarter was not as super-heated as prior quarters, but still the book-to-bill was very good against a significant increase in deliveries,” said Phebe Novakovic, CEO and chair, General Dynamics. “Only time will tell about the macroeconomic impact, but we continue to see strong interest.”

Gulfstream had a book-to-bill of 1.3 to 1 for the quarter. The aerospace backlog grew to $19.1bn, up 1.4% in three months, and 29.7% from the same quarter in 2021.

Textron has not seen a drop in demand either. It saw a 1.2% drop in revenue due to supply chain issues. But still had strong figures. Textron delivered 39 jets during the three months, down from 49 last year, and 33 turboprops, down from 35.

It still made a $139m profit – up $41m compared with the same three months of 2021. Some $31m of this was because it was able to raise prices. Its backlog at the end of the third quarter was $6.4bn, compared with $3.5bn last year.

All of the manufacturer CEOs we met with at NBAA-BACE, do expect FBO Drive to catch up with the Main Street slowdown. But they are all confident that they will be able to manage this. This is largely because production levels are still a long way below industry averages.

“We’ve been ramping up our production volumes through the course of the year, we continue to do that. But we have been hit by a number of supply chain challenges that have resulted in aircraft pushing out to the right, our guys are managing through that,” said Scott Donnelly, chair, president and CEO of Textron.

These supply chain issues have stopped all manufacturers from rapidly increasing production. They are all only looking to ramp up cautiously and it easier to do this when all your competitors are doing the same.

“We’ll continue to watch demand in the marketplace. As long as we see a growing backlog in a strong environment, then we’ll continue that ramp, but it’s going to be a slow steady ramp,” said Donnelly.

Aircraft manufacturers can rightly feel annoyed that their strong performance is not being rewarded by a nervous Wall Street as it should. But just like Amazon, they are continuing to deliver well.

The post Wall Street v FBO Drive appeared first on Corporate Jet Investor.