CAMP Systems buys Avinode
The Avinode exhibit at NBAA 2014 was one of the most eye-catching at the show.
Back when the dot com bubble was starting to burst and the very light jet boom was just starting to froth, three students at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, came up with a business plan to launch a Scandinavian air taxi company.
To be successful they realised they needed a business jet charter marketplace to drive demand. So they decided to launch that as well. One of their professors suggested they focus on the marketplace and park the air taxi idea. The Avinode charter marketplace launched in 2002.
CAMP Systems this week agreed to buy Avinode and two smaller FBO software businesses – FBO One and Total FBO – for $200m. The professor was right.
It is a good deal for World Kinect (the energy company formally known as World Fuel) which acquired Avinode in 2014. World Kinect will use the cash to pay down debt and focus on its core fuelling business. It has clearly made a good return on its investment. World Kinect took control in 2019 just before its main business was hit with grounded airlines.
“We are excited about the possibilities the partnership between our companies will bring to our customers,” said Oliver King, chief executive officer, Avinode Group.
The acquisition also makes a lot of sense for CAMP Systems, the aircraft maintenance tracking business. CAMP Systems is itself owned by Hearst, a 136-year-old private company. Hearst is best known for publishing regional newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle (which it launched in 1887) and magazines like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Bazaar. But along with newspapers, TV and magazines it has three significant business-to-business data divisions: Fitch Ratings, healthcare and transportation.
The transportation division includes data that helps mechanics fix trucks and cars. This includes MOTOR, a magazine that Hearst has owned for more than 120 years. MOTOR has evolved from a print consumer magazine into a data business for car repair, parts and insurance. Aviation is just as significant to Hearst.
Hearst acquired CAMP Systems in 2016 from private equity firm GTCR. (GTCR is now an investor in JSSI and has supported it buying two aircraft maintenance tracking companies that are rivals to CAMP.)
CAMP Systems then bought Inventory Locator Systems, the spares marketplace, from Boeing in 2019. In 2021 it bought a majority stake in FlightBridge, a workflow system that connects business jet operators with FBO, car handlers, hotels, airlines and catering companies.
When the deal closes in May, Avinode will fit into CAMP’s Marketplaces Group along with ILS, FlightBridge and Amstat – the aircraft listing marketplace.
“This represents a complementary extension of our business and platform to bring exciting new opportunities to the market and better serve our expanding customer base,” said Sean Lanagan, president and chief executive Officer, CAMP Systems.
World Kinetic did not run a formal sales process, instead it contacted companies that had already approached it in the past. The business could have fitted well with Directional Aviation’s spin-off Tuvoli (which has FlyEasy, a rival marketplace and a payment system competitor). It might also have been of interest to Portside, the flight department software company which raised $50m in private equity from investor Insight Partners (and recently acquired the rights to Wheels Up’s AVIANIS software). The founders of Wheels Up had also tried to buy Avinode several times.
King and the senior management team have no plans to leave. This includes Per Marthinsson, one of the three founders, who is Avinode’s chief revenue office.
The other two founders are backing a European car charging start-up. It was branded before they joined, but is genuinely called ChargeNode.
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