Bain consortium buys Maldives seaplane operator from Blackstone - update
Bain Capital Private Equity has teamed up with two Chinese partners to acquire Trans Maldivian Airways (TMA), the world’s largest seaplane operator, from The Blackstone Group.
Bain Capital’s partners on the investment are Shenzhen Tempus Global Business Services, a Shenzhen-listed provider of air tickets, tourism, travel management, and online travel finance services, and TBRJ Fund 1. The latter is managed by TBRJ Asset Management, a joint venture fund management company established by RJ Capital Group and a subsidiary of Tempus Global.
Tempus Global said in a filing that it would pay $10 million for a 5% stake in TMA. Bain Capital is taking a 79.5% interest, TBRJ will have 14.9%, and TMA management will hold the remaining 0.6%. This implies an overall equity consideration of $200 million, which is consistent with previous Debtwire reports that the consortium would pay around $500 million, including $300 million in debt.
Blackstone controlled the company for nearly five years, having acquired majority interests in Maldivian Air Taxi and Trans Maldivian Airways in 2013.
Founded in 1989, TMA has a fleet of 49 seaplanes that carry approximately 400,000 passengers annually from Velana International Airport in the Maldives’ capital of Malé, to luxury resorts on islands throughout the country. The company services more than 60 resorts, conducting around 50,000 round-trip flights per year.
The Maldives is an archipelago of about 1,190 islands and a population of 400,000. It received 1.29 million tourists in 2016. Asian arrivals totaled 598,000, with China alone accounting for 324,000. The Maldivian government has promised significant infrastructure investment to support the tourism industry. This includes an expansion to the main airport that is expected to be completed in 2018.
“TMA is well-positioned to capture the growing tourism demand in the Maldives. Leveraging Bain Capital Private Equity’s successful track record in the leisure industry, we look forward to working with the current management team, employees and customers of TMA to continue to grow and support the industry,” Jonathan Zhu, a managing director at Bain Capital, said in a statement.
The private equity firm is currently investing its third pan-Asian fund, which closed in late 2015 at the hard cap of $3 billion plus a GP commitment of at least $250 million. Existing tourism sector exposure in the region includes Japanese hotel and spa operator Ooedo-Onsen Holdings.
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