Tailorman is factually spot on apart from just one small point, which he probably wasn't aware of, which is that in fact six pilots were recruited in the initial intake, two of whom were Scandinavian. They arrived a day or two earlier than the rest of us, and apparently MD was extremely offhand (probably so busy with the stress of buying all these companies). One of the Scandinavian pilots saw the coffee much more quickly than the rest of us and made his excuses and left. No idea where he ended up but if he's reading good luck to him.
Phil, everyone was told conflicting stories, so all we can do is read between the lines about company purchases. I THINK the truth is that negotiations were opened with several companies (doubtless the same documents proving forthcoming investment which were used to convince us were used to convince them) but I think that is as far as it ever went. Whether an agreement to purchase was ever reached or not, I think possibly, but not in all cases. Whether a purchase definitely was completed of any of these companies, I would say no, due to investment promised not arriving for a host of excuses which were plausible at the time, and centered around the Barclays or RBS buy out of ABN Amro. MD still CLAIMED that several companies, one of which was a helicopter company, one of which had an AOC, had been bought. When calls started coming in to the office about helicopter charters it merely added weight to his claims, and whilst we were pretty sure he was lying about some things (like the Ferrari for example) it looked like he was just jumping the gun and it was slowly starting to happen. We told ourselves that in any start up there were bound to be teething troubles, and to be honest, thought that MD would not last the distance anyway, once he had served his usefulness. What we got wrong was that he was in any way useful at all, and he had lied to the investor about his prowess and skill running a charter company.
He also told us, and gave us a handout of the purchase schedule, that Unique Air had agreed to buy every single SJ30 which was due to roll off the production line in the next two years, possibly more. He even had the brokers convinced as they spent a large sum on a trip for MD and his then girlfriend to Dubai, where he told us he had signed the contract.
As I say it all seemed a lot more plausible back then.
