Business
PNG's Heli Niugini has New Owners
Management buyout tipped to strengthen services.
Heli Niugini Ltd has been purchased through a management buyout by the senior management team of Peter Todd, Sione Momoa and David Cooper, in conjunction with the Kula Fund. Heli Niugini is a helicopter support charter company whose corporate origins in Papua New Guinea date back to 1984 when it was providing helicopter support to Bougainville Copper. Since these corporate origins, Heli Niugini has successfully provided helicopter support capability to the mining and petroleum industry, and other general charters.
The senior management team has been associated with Heli Niugini and Papua New Guinea¹s rotor aviation industry for the past 10 years.
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The vendor, Horst Allman, will assume the role of non-executive chairman.
"We are very excited and satisfied to have facilitated and structured this buyout transaction that ensures the long-term retention and motivation of such a highly professional and successful helicopter support charter team in PNG," says Troy Stubbings, investment manager of the transaction. Heli Niugini's new managing director, Todd, said his management team was very excited about the prospects and opportunities that this ownership change transaction afforded the company.
"Together with Horst Allman, (founder of company and rotor pilot pioneer in PNG) we have created to date a very humble and successful service company. "Together with Kula Fund adding further strength to our company we believe Heli Niugini will strengthen its position as a key local service provider to the resources sector. "We have plans to introduce a new generation of aircraft into PNG that should result in significant improvements in productivity and safety. "Heli Niugini is absolutely focussed on productivity and safety, a culture that is lived by our workforce of [100]."
As the only professional and dedicated provider of private equity capital for the South Pacific region, Kula Fund's mandate is to identify and invest in commercially viable, sustainable and socially responsible businesses. Kula Fund is managed by CDC Capital Partners (formerly Commonwealth Development Corporation), which has a significant investment and involvement in Papua New Guinea resource and agri-industry sectors.
The Heli Niugini buyout is Kula Fund's eighth investment - five in Papua New Guinea and three in Fiji. Heli Niugini is Kula¹s third management buyout transaction.
Following this transaction Kula Fund has invested US$11 million in the Pacific over the four years of its existence.
"Kula remains committed to investment in PNG and the Pacific" stated Liam Cully, general manager of Kula Fund. "Heli Niugini¹s professionalism and commitment to world class practices is what we seek in all our investments."
