Willis Lease buys Welsh aviation asset specialist

California-based Willis Lease Finance Corporation (WLFC) has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Willis Asset Management Limited, has purchased the business and assets of Total Engine Support Limited (TES), the consulting and asset management business of the TES Aviation Group, which is headquartered in Bridgend, Wales.

WLFC leases large and regional spare commercial aircraft engines, auxiliary power units and aircraft to airlines, aircraft engine manufacturers and maintenance, repair and overhaul providers in 120 countries. The Welsh acquisition is intended to support its move to expand into other part of the leasing lifecycle.

With some 500 jet engines under management, the TES Group is well known in the aviation industry as a leading asset management, technical services and consultancy business. It has recently gone into administration, but WLFC’s acquisition of the group’s consulting, technical services and asset management business will preserve 32 jobs.

WLFC says this expertise, which includes decades of engine-related performance data, will now be offered through Willis Asset Management. WLFC says customers will also be able to benefits from access to the Willis lease finance platform, capital and nearly 250 owned and managed engines.

“We have discussed for many years the goal of turning our world class technical team into a source of revenue by developing an asset management and technical services business and we began marketing these services, with great success, to our customers last year,” said Charles Willis, chairman and CEO.

“With this investment, we have taken a significant leap forward in that process by bringing on the exceptional people who made TES the leader in engine consultancy and management, as well as the customer relationships, sophisticated systems and data that could have taken us years to develop on our own. We also are very excited to join the business community in Wales and look forward to growing the business quickly to deliver and enhance the great services that TES has provided for many years,” he added.

Brian Hole, president of Willis Lease, said that while it planned to continue to grow its core leasing business, this investment would allow the company to expand horizontally, offering products and services across the asset life cycle that are complementary to the financing and surplus material solutions it already offers.

“We believe that combining TES’s people and capabilities with our people, capital and existing assets gives us the ability to offer our combined customer base a very unique value proposition – an independent and sophisticated view on fleet planning, owning, financing, operating, maintaining and transitioning out of aviation assets, as well as the ability to deliver solutions in each area,” Hole said.