Directional Aviation Buys Sentient Jet

[BlueNose]

AINalerts » June 14, 2012
Directional Aviation Capital, the business aviation-oriented private equity firm headed by Kenn Ricci, acquired charter broker Sentient Jet and aviation fuel management company Everest Fuel Management for an undisclosed sum from Australia-based Macquarie Global Opportunities Partners. The deal closed May 31, but wasn’t revealed to employees at Sentient and Evergreen until last week, Ricci said when confirming the acquisitions to AIN on Tuesday evening.
Asked why his firm bought Sentient Jet, he said it “is the industry’s leading charter consolidator, has tremendous brand value and offers unique product options.” At this point, Ricci said, “Sentient will be run as a standalone company, but we have always tried to acquire companies that could benefit from a relationship with other companies we own.” Directional Aviation also owns Corporate Wings, Constant Aviation, Nextant Aerospace, Sojourn Aviation and Spinnaker Air, as well as a majority share of fractional provider Flight Options.

 

[brokeflyer]

that's great news, ricci really knows how to run a company.

 

[jtf]

They will probably be handed the vast majority of the sell offs when Options has trouble with a flight. It will probably be used similar to how NJA uses EJM to keep some profit from sell offs. Or to make more money for Ricci if he refuses to share with Options while forcing them to use his new company for as many sell offs as possible. Hopefully the Options pilot contract has some scope wording that doesn't allow too many sell offs and protects against Sentient being used to whipsaw wages down.