- GeneralM&A
- January 9, 2021
- 5 minutes read
Bill Gates, Blackstone Bid $4.3B For British Aviation Firm
The famed Microsoft founder Bill Gates has teamed up with the American private equity giant Blackstone in a bid to…
The famed Microsoft founder Bill Gates has teamed up with the American private equity giant Blackstone in a bid to acquire Signature Aviation (LON:SIG), a British aviation services firm focused on business and private travel. Together, Blackstone and Gates’ holding firm, Cascade Investment, are bidding to take Signature private in a $4.3 billion deal.
Already, Cascade is the biggest shareholder in publicly-traded Signature Aviation with a 20% stake. It’s now looking to team up with Blackstone to buy out the company. As the deal is structured, Gates’s Cascade would pony up additional cash to increase its stake in Signature to 30% while Blackstone buys the remaining 70%.
Gates’ Cascade Investments first invested in Signature (formerly BBA Aviation) back in 2009 and gradually built up its stake to 20% over time. Now its biggest shareholder, a partnership with Blackstone to buy out Signature seems to be the frontrunner deal even as other potential bidders may emerge (the private equity firm Carlyle Group has confirmed that it’s also exploring a bid).
Blackstone and Signature Aviation entered into advanced talks in 2020, wherein Signature said that it’ll accept a $5.17-per-share offer made by Blackstone if the talks morphed into a formal deal. Now with backing from the aviation company’s largest shareholder, we could soon be seeing one of the biggest aviation deals to open up 2021.
Like Blackstone ($584 billion AUM), the Carlyle Group ($230 billion AUM) is another deep-pocketed private equity firm and could make an offer than even surpasses that of Blackstone-Cascade. Signature has confirmed that it’s received a takeover approach from Carlyle, the price not yet stated.
Signature Aviation was formerly known as BBA Aviation before it changed its name just last year. Originally an aviation services firm that catered to both commercial and private travel, the British company has in recent years focused on the private sector and sold off one of its main business units, the airplane parts distributor Ontic for $1.4 billion, last year to streamline its focus on the private aviation sector.
Photo credit: World Economic Forum is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
