BBA Aviation Services is set to acquire Chicago-based fixed-base operator (FBO) Priester. The aviation services company is to pay $16 million for the facility in Palwaukee, Illinois.
Roy McGlone, the group's chief executive, says that the company is close to completing the deal to add the FBO, which is the 25th busiest in the USA, to its Signature network of 54 sites across the country. The aim, says McGlone, is to control the top 150 facilities nationwide in the next five years.
The company's aviation services division saw revenues of more than £1 billion ($1.47 billion) last year and continued to grow in the first six months of this year. Overall the group, which also includes a materials division, reported mixed results for the period. Turnover was up 9% compared with the six-month period last year at £695 million, but profits fell by a tenth to £70.8 million. However, the aviation division grew by 13% in the same period, much of which was due to acquisitions including Aircraft Service International Group (ASIG).
McGlone says that the $137 million acquisition of the ground handling and fuelling company takes BBA from being a niche player in the commercial aviation services market to number four in the world.
BBA is expanding its Signature Flight Support FBO brand across the USA and the company has Asia and Europe in its sights. McGlone says that this sector of the market is growing at 6-7% per year and predicts heavy consolidation in the forthcoming years.
BBA has also strengthened its relationship with Executive Jet in the past few months in a deal pledging that EJA's NetJets fractional programme will use BBA's facilities wherever possible. Executive Jet will also make extensive use of BBA's engine overhaul and repair facilities. which were expanded by the acquisition of Gulfstream facilities, traded in a contra deal for BBA's loss-making regional maintenance centres.
Source: Flight International
