Milestone Aviation Group: Helicopter Financier of the Year 2012

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Milestone Aviation Group was awarded Helicopter Financier of the Year 2012 by Corporate Jet Investor the specialist business jet and helicopter finance website and event organiser.

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“Hi. We are Milestone. We have $500 million and we like your industry,” said Bill Kelly, CEO, Milestone Aviation Group at our London conference in February 2011.

It seemed like a lot of money then, but by the end of the year the helicopter leasing company had found homes for most of it. By the end of December of 2011 Milestone had leased helicopters worth $240 million to operators across the world and made further commitments of $240 million.  (As an opportunistic business jet financier it had also financed one fixed-wing aircraft).

Even Milestone’s team members were surprised at the demand they found. Whilst they were always confident that they would find lots of interest from smaller cash-hungry operators, they thought it might take a while for larger operators to embrace their product in much the same way as commercial aircraft operating leasing companies found with large airlines.

Fortunately for Milestone, the market saw the benefit of its products quickly. Since launch the team has signed up large operators such as CHC, with a $80 million sale-and-leaseback of two Sikorsky S92s and three Eurocopter AS332L2 as well Inaer, financing one EC135 and an A109E for the European EMS and public helicopter operator.

In total Milestone has leased 32 helicopters to 14 helicopter operators around the world. Milestone has aircraft in 12 countries on four continents.

Over 70% of the fleet is engaged in servicing the oil and gas industry. As well as CHC, Milestone also completed deals with other operators in the oil and gas industry, leasing four Sikorsky S76C++ and an EC-225 to Brazilian operator OMNI Táxi Aéreo. Beyond that there were two B412EPS leased to Mexico’s ASESA, one B412EP for Evergreen Helicopters and a B412EP to Global Vectra in India.

As well as Inaer, which it financed in the EMS sector, Milestone financed four A109Es for US operator CareFlite and leased three S76C+s to Canada’s Helijet.

One deal of which the team is particularly proud was leasing four EC-145 helicopters to Transportes Aereos Pegaso on a long-term contract with the Mexican Comisión Federal de Electricidad. Milestone says the deal closed just six weeks after their first discussion.

Towards the end of 2011, Milestone completed a $17 million deal with Eurocopter for five EC-130B4s that are due to be delivered in the second half of 2012. 

The good news for the helicopter market is that Milestone will have more money available in 2012. It is about to close a debt facility and may also raise more equity. In the helicopter sector $500 million is a lot of money but Milestone has big ambitions.

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