Bristow to merge with Era
 

Official as of a few minutes ago.

From The Wall Street Journal

Helicopter company Era Group Inc. is in advanced-stage talks to acquire industry peer Bristow Group Inc., which emerged from bankruptcy in October after shedding roughly $900 million in debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/helicopter-company-bristow-in-merger-talks-months-after-bankruptcy-exit-11579825877

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bristow-era-merge-forming-larger-113010625.html

Employee portal FAQs below, Among other things it states no redundancies or change in benefits and that 7 of the 9 Board of Directors for the combined company will be from Bristow...

https://www.streetinsider.com/SEC+Fi.../16368310.html

How long will it take for Bristow to drag Era down?

Sounds like a trade of cracked Bats to me!

One big race to the bottom!

I would have thought it would be better the other way round.

End of an Era?

Saddest news this year! End of an ERA indeed. Guessing some people's pockets are getting lined well, as surely no one could be that stupid. It seems another will drown in the offshore industry.

So the company that avoided Ch11 is joining with those who’ve only just departed from the process after grossly incompetent management. Maybe the ERA CEO is taking the helm. All the while CHC Scotia post record losses.

Can anyone with a deeper insight than myself explain how this merger is going to become anything other than a complete financial debacle........most likely sooner rather than later? I mean seriously, when one examines the Bristow business model in use these last number of years, you would think an operator like ERA would know better and just stay as far away as possible and avoid being infected from the outside.

Not an unfair comparison, with strong similarities to Bristow/ERA in scope, management and strategy. I’ll add some fact check to your statement.
https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandga...enging-market/

Does anyone believe there is a profitable offshore business model that does work in these times??

Hard to disagree with this statement.

Apparently the ERA CEO is indeed taking the helm. Board of directors yet to be announced.

In theory it is possible to build a new facility by means of lending the money or build it with a mortgage. Then only the pay back or interest weight on your yearly turn-over.
But these long term liabilities will of course draw down on your balance

Well investors seem to like the deal, stock price rose over 19% yesterday

Anyone that can fly? :rolleyes:

As a fixed winger: how much business do drones take away from heli’s nowadays? Inspections etc?

A certain amount from the onshore filming, photography and survey market which will increase over time. Little or nothing from the portfolios of the likes of Bristow or ERA.

Yeah. Offshore O&G companies buy and operate their own helicopters.

Does this mean Bristow is getting back into the small ship business in the GOM?

Or....has that horse left the barn already?

Investment in hangars and terminal will be fixed assets and depreciated over 10-25 years, so apart from a fractional increase in annual costs it doesn't affect annual profit.
MBAs have some value despite what eveybody on here thinks.

Even if you pay for it in cash, the only affect on Profit will be the depreciation - i.e. one-20th of the cost (more or less depending on the type of asset).
Cash flow and profit are not the same.

Well if no-ne is making money, suppliers will close down reducing capacity and the price to the oil companies will go up until operators are making money again.

How would the customer operate if there were no helicopter service? If there is no alternative why are you all cutting each other's throats to lose money on the contract? If there is too much capacity, someone needs to close - forcibly through bankruptcy or voluntarily by winding up and investing their money in something else.

Last time there was an merger it was over 2 decades ago between then KLM Helicopters BV and Era to form KLM-ERA which was short lived.

Like the rest of folks here who attending Anaheim, be worth seeing the announcements on both companies booth.

cheers

Funny thing is, when Air Dog/Offshore came out of reorganization in the 80s they gobbled up Bristow. Now 30 years later the "former" Air Dog comes out of Chap 11 and gobbles up another operator. Tune in for another episode of...As the Rotor Turns....:eek:

What was done to Bristow by JB (the CEO after Bill Chiles left) should have resulted in criminal charges. Along with RB (SVP Ops at the time) they choked the life out of the bases, upsetting clients and employees simultaneously. We lost clients we'd had for decades and shed so many essential employees we were almost at a standstill while JB siphoned money out to fund his Ivory Tower in Houston. RB was so arrogant and rude to everyone he encountered, one client's Global Aviation Manager walked out of their first meeting and refused to ever communicate with him.

How sad that it has come to this. ERA need to be very careful not to reward failure as Bristow have done since 2014.

NEO

NEO, post #999

I’m surprised that more people have not made critical comments like yours regarding this merger bearing in mind some pretty damming criticisms in other threads discussing the possible milking of the cash cow by senior executives during its rise and fall of Bristow

I left in 2009 when RB started to be in full flow, never did understand what hold he had over BC when the latter was normally a pretty good judge of character. Thankfully it was a good move for me and I never had to go through the JB era.

Funny you should say that. Posted elsewhere by me a few days ago:
"These companies ... ... ... started out, succeeded, and grew to prominence while being run by people who could fly. Now they are run by folks with a MBA instead of an ATPL(H) who are determined to rip as much cash out of the company as possible and pump it into the pockets of shareholders, including themselves, by the year end. Post-bankruptcy, they are run by a broadly similar set of rip-off artists."

Just look at the mess FlyBe is in after one persons tenure yet he and his team have parachuted into Specialist Aviation HEMS creating a management tree drawing over a million in salaries where previous management was little more than an individual who took far less. And they use the excuse of lack of funding to keep their pilots the lowest paid in the industry....

No different than the US airlines. US Airways merged with (bought) American out of bankruptcy and has steadily dragged the "new" American to new lows.

It's not an MBA nor an ATPL. Neither one makes you any more or less ethical. Or intelligent for that matter.

The issue is senior management who are incompetent at running a business, have no ideas for how to improve it other than adding more weight at the top.

When things get tough and your 'business model' doesn't work, take on more debt and buy another failing company. Turning two failing companies into one big failing company is what some people call 'innovation'.

Merger complete
 

Bristow Completes Merger with Era | Bristow Group

According to the link

“HOUSTON, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bristow Group Inc. (NYSE:VTOL) and Era Group Inc. (“Era”) announced today that they have completed their combination (the “Merger”), creating a financially stronger company with enhanced size and diversification. The newly combined company will use the Bristow Group name (“Bristow”) and will remain a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. The newly combined company’s common stock will begin trading under the stock ticker “VTOL” beginning on June 12, 2020 and will have a new CUSIP number of 11040G103. “

Closure of New Iberia and Galiano
 

As result of merger, New Iberia and Galiano will close...which kind of makes sense as Era themselves already operate out of New Iberia.

https://www.verticalmag.com/news/bri...utm_content=V1

Cheers

FYI: ERA's main hangar is in Lake Charles. The Galiano and New Iberia bases are legacy Bristow bases with the New Iberia base previously the main hangar from the Air Log days. ERA has a Houma base also if I recall. I think there will also be another operator or 2 who will be closing locations as the requirements in the GOM change or as leases come do.