OAT is put up for sale.
 

Is this a sign that there are rocky times ahead or are BBA just cashing in their chips?

Correct! I am the new owner, I paid £2.67 for it. A little more than I wanted to spend but it is Oxford afterall. As of tommorrow, the course fee will not include CAA licence issue fees, accomodation and meals in order to save money..... Oh wait Ive just been informed that these items are already not included. As well as this, the school will be relocated to Tehran, Iran in order to take advantage of the good weather, cheap fuel and cheap everything. Travel, visas and jabs are not the responsibility of the school and shall be covered by the student.

In order to cut costs we will be re inventing our fleet by using some older but just as high quality aircraft (see below)

http://www.elginhistory.com/dgb/airplane.jpg

The fee for a skills assesment will rise from £195 to £1200 to cover administration costs and will take place at the school in Tehran. Good luck to all our current and prospective students!

Hi there,

TheBeak, i am just curious where you read that OAT is up for sale?? Can you provide a link??

g1344304 very amusing indeed, but people who take the biscuit out of Oxford do need to go and get themselves a life!! No one forces a student to go to the school - it's their decision!! You are entitled to your opinion of the school and i respect that. At the end of the day they offer superb facilities for their students, granted at a higher price but you get what you pay for. If you go up the road to Cabair, where obviously the sun shines out of their proverbial orrifice, you could pay less - but quite frankley the prospect of spending my 6 months ground school in a porter cabin doesn't appeal to me - after all one would training to become a pilot not a builder!! I believe they also train their students 'where the fuel is cheap and where everything is cheap'

Regards

JETSETJ

Its just a joke jetset, didnt mean to offend. Didnt think it would be taken seriously! My opinion of the school is not stated anywhere in the thread

Does this have something to do with todays date? :confused:

There was me thinking OAT was really up for sale!

APRIL FOOL!

Oh yeah!!

I though all April fools are supposed be posted before 1200 - so does that make the original poster the fool?? That's my excuse and i'm sticking with it:O

g1344304, no worries - it wasn't directed at you sir, it's just incredibly frustrating to see OAT being continously slated on these forums and yet no one ever seems to have an opinion on Cabair or the other schools! In fact i don't think i've ever read a negative post about Cabair or any of the other schools??

Happy April fools:D

JetsetJ:ok:

An eternity of bad luck to those who dare to fool beyond 1100Z :ugh:

"In fact i don't think i've ever read a negative post about Cabair"

lol maybe you should read the Cabair thread!!!

seems it is true - article in todays Financial Mail on Sunday, - you can find it if you search for the newspaper. It says:

THE company that trains pilots for customers such as British Airways and Thomas Cook could soon be under new ownership.

Oxford Aviation Training, which caters for the civil and military sectors, has been put up for sale by BBA Aviation.

The UK-listed aircraft maintenance group is understood to have instructed advisers from accountancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers to sound out buyers.

The business, which has attracted strong interest from private equity firms, could sell for between £70 million and £80 million.

The firm, established more than 40 years ago, operates two residential pilot training centres — at Oxford Airport and at Phoenix Goodyear Airport in the Arizona desert.

Pilots who have trained to become a first officer on one of Oxford Aviation’s £60,000 courses are usually recruited by airlines such as British Airways, BMI and easyJet.

Since it was founded in 1963 the company has trained more than 20,000 commercial pilots.

Sales at Oxford Aviation Training were £18 million in 2006 — an increase of 20 per cent on the previous year. Higher revenues reflected the explosion in air travel that has followed the arrival of cheap, no-frills carriers such as Ryanair and easyJet.

Shares in BBA Aviation, which has a current market value of £1.15 billion, closed on Friday at 281p, down 1.13 per cent.

n90bar

You got there before me. I was just reading the Financial Mail too and see the artical. Nice picture of the lads in the cockpit on approach.

I personally think this is bad news! But thats just my opinion.

Yeah it's true. I must say I think it would be dreadful for a private equity firm/ Venture Capital backed firm to buy the company as there sole objective will be to strip everything to the bones in terms of cost. cut corners, lean back on the head count and make a quick profit to re-sell on in 2-4 years time. I would think twice about investing vast sums of money and my career and thus future with a VC backed training provider. The idea may work for product based companies but surely not training providers............OAT may have a good(ish!) name and respectable brand but it could be demolished in a heartbeat.

Might not be bad news for us modular folk :}

I wonder what their reason behind the sale is?

My offer was simply too good to refuse!

I'd say the reason is that they have taken the business to the capacity they really can without taking a much longer term view on things and tieing themselves in for another 10 years. No matter what anyone says realistically (and not pesamistically) the industry is due a relative downturn, interest rates are going up, there are government changes on the cards and the current boom has been 64 months relative to the typical 57 months........I'd say from their side it makes sense. Their is more and more competition out their and OAT is starting to struggle to maintain its competitiveness. I think the company will plummet if bought by a Venture Capaitalist type company........it will be bad news for them.

Clearly, little idea of what Private Equity/Venture Capital actually do then...

I highly doubt they would be at all interested in the business anyway, as there is so little in the way of contracted ongoing revenues - too much cyclical business dependent upon the business cycle - few banks would lend to it for a buyout. You don't see students returning year after year!

Trade buyer would make far more sense.

No actually a very good idea of what VC companies 'do' thanks. 'VC' companies don't 'do' anything specifically, they 'are' investors that will look to make the company seem as profitable as possible in as short a time as possible and then either go public or sell it on for a big profit. And how the hell is training cyclical? Now that OATs training is USA/UK split is isnt at all cyclical nor seasonal.

The Staff did not know1
 

Just spoke to some of the staff from when i was there and as normal they found out the same way we did from the Mail. They are not happy!
It looks like the company good as it is has been fattened for a big sell off! Rumour has it that someone who looks like Jimmy Somerville has just purchased a really expensive sports car. Was it a big bonus?

I hear through the grape vine that all training on the APP will be in the US. This'll be interesting to see how these newly qualified guys cope with flying in UK airspace on their first job.... It's also interesting :rolleyes: to see if the £60K + course comes down in price considering how cheap you can actually fly in the US, or is this going to be marked up!

Just a rumour I heard.....makes you wonder though.

All a little too capitalist for my liking!

SinBin,

I'd love to know where you heard that about all training being conducted in the states? My understanding was that the IR must be completed in European Airspace. Not much of that in the states.