Connecticut Billionaire Buys Jet Ownership, Leasing Company
Oct. 11—A billionaire who splits his time between Darien and Los Angeles — and the occasional weekend in London to view his Premier League team — is taking the "fractional" aircraft company Flexjet public via the "blank check" firm he controls in Greenwich.
Flexjet agreed to a buyout by Todd Boehly's Horizon Acquisition, which raised $500 million two years ago in its own initial public offering of stock, with the intent to buy an operating company. Such "special-purpose acquisition companies" have been in vogue the past few years as an alternative to a traditional IPO for privately owned companies.
Some 10,000 individuals and businesses use Flexjet, with fractional jet ownership and leasing companies allowing people access to business aircraft for far less than they would pay to own one. Flexjet's fleet includes Gulfstream, Challenger, Praetor and Phenom jets, and S-76 helicopters made by Stratford-based Sikorsky.
Flexjet is based at Cuyahoga County Airport in Cleveland and has about 3,100 employees, including 1,100 pilots. The company lists a few open positions in Bridgeport at its Flexjet Vertical subsidiary which it added last June with the acquisition of Associated Aircraft Group.
The company has New York City regional hubs at Westchester County Airport across the Greenwich line in White Plains, N.Y., and at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.
Kenn Ricci purchased Flexjet's operations in 2013 from Bombadier Aircraft, merging it with his fractional jet company Flight Options and building it into a business valued at more than $3 billion.
In an investor presentation Tuesday, Flexjet estimated 2022 revenue of $2.3 billion, which would be one-third more than it tallied in 2021. NetJets is the market leader for fractional aircraft.
"Flexjet has established a reputation of innovation providing the ultimate personalization to passengers and this breeds the highest standard of loyalty with customers," Boehly said Tuesday, in prepared remarks during a conference call. "Flexjet is a destination of choice for the best pilots and provides the industry's highest pilot compensation program."
Boehly already held a stake in Flexjet via his Greenwich investment firm Eldridge Industries, which had acquired the aircraft finance business of Guggenheim Partners where Boehly once worked with Ricci.
Boehly is known best for his entertainment and media industry investments which have spanned the Los Angeles Dodgers, L.A. Lakers and L.A. Sparks; Billboard, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety; and the sports gaming company DraftKings. Earlier this year, an investment syndicate led by Boehly bought out a Russian oligarch's share of Chelsea Football Club in the English Premier League.
Boehly owns a brick Georgian mansion on Hollow Ridge Tree Road in Darien and adjacent "field house" that were last appraised by the town at $9.5 million. Forbes included him among six Connecticut residents on its annual "Forbes 400" list of the wealthiest people in the United States.
Includes prior reporting by Amy Coval and Paul Schott.
[email protected]; @casoulman
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