US air-medical and maintenance company Keystone Helicopter has been acquired by a venture capital group intent on growing the firm's helicopter services business through other acquisitions and mergers.
The new parent company, Keystone Ranger Holdings, plans to grow the firm's air-medical flight services operations in the northeast USA as well as expand Keystone's helicopter maintenance and completion activities.
The venture capital group is led by Ranger Aerospace, a US investment and management company which last year sold airfield services specialist Aircraft Service International Group to the UK's BBA Group. "Our objective is to carefully grow Keystone Helicopter as a platform company, as we continue to search for other acquisitions and mergers in the helicopter services industry in North America, Europe and elsewhere," says Keystone Ranger Holdings chief executive Steve Townes.
Based in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Keystone operates air-medical helicopters at 19 locations in the north east USA, providing almost half of its business.
The other half is in helicopter maintenance, overhaul, outfitting and retrofitting. All new S-76 helicopters produced by Sikorsky are completed by Keystone under a cost-saving deal struck in 2000.
Elsewhere in the industry, Advanced Aerodynamics and Structures has announced a new management team and a strategy to acquire other manufacturers of general aviation aircraft to supplement the single-turboprop JetCruzer 500 now in development. The management team is lead by Roy Norris, a former president of Raytheon Aircraft. Among the company's early acquisition targets is bankrupt Mooney Aircraft.
Source: Flight International
