There have been rumors of this for over a year now, but as I mention in my News thread post, most of the staff know nothing about it.
Interestingly, CHC has just renewed its contract in Malabo. Schreiners were bidding against them for the contract and it makes one wonder if those doing the contract bids from CHC and Schreiner (or indeed Mobil) were aware of the impending take over?
I'd imagine the simple way would be to transfer the North Sea to CHCI and let them keep the name (rather like Helikopter Service and Scotia), and Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad to CHC Africa. The other complication is that Schreiner only owns 50% of Aero Contractors Nigeria, the rest being owned by the Ibru family (I think that's the case, as it used to be 40%, but they were trying to increase their stake after the Nigerian government relaxed the rules on foreign ownership of Nigerian companies).
Schreiner also has a 50% stake in Spain's largest helicopter operator, Helicsa. The next few months could be interesting, and possibly a bit bloody. as in Holland there is still some animosity between pilots and engineers of Schreiner and those formerly employed by KLM (then KLM/ERA).
After all the restructuring of Schreiner and the various sell-offs of different sections (like the simulator division) over the last few years, nobody should be really surprised that this has happened - it looks very much as if this is what the company was being prepared for.
