46 | Flight International | 10-16 November 2015 flightglobal.com
BUSINESS AVIATION
SPECIAL REPORT
STEPHEN TRIMBLE PERRYVILLE, MISSOURI
Free of a non-compete agreement that barred it from the
civil aviation market, Sabreliner Aviation is now pushing
to exploit its legacy as a full-service aircraft manufacturer
Perryville remains a maintenance centre for the remaining fleet of Rockwell SabrelinersW
inding through a rural highway
about a dozen miles northeast
of Perryville, Missouri in early
autumn, a visitor discovers that
a field of corn stalks ripe for harvest almost
swallows a sign announcing the destination:
“Sabreliner Aviation”.
Lying just beyond the end of the adjacent
Perryville Municipal Airport’s 7,000ft runway
is the Mississippi River and the small, almost
lifeless village of Kaskaskia, Illinois.
Although now nearly abandoned, Kaskaskia
was once an important regional centre, and
briefly the state capital. Soil erosion forced the
riverbanks to drift eastward, however, destroy-
ing a once-significant city, leaving virtually no
trace. So, the corn stalks of the fertile Missis-
sippi plains recently threatened to engulf Sa-
breliner’s four-hangar, Perryville campus. Once
CUTTING A NEW
PATH FORWARD
a thriving assembly centre of the iconic Repub-
lic Aviation business jet, Sabreliner was by
2012 on the brink of financial extinction.
When the Perryville assembly line finally
closed in the early 1980s, Sabreliner devel-
oped into a successful, diversified mainte-
nance centre. Its background as a Rockwell
Sabreliner completions facility and assembly
centre lent a rare combination of skills and
tools. Commercial and military customers
took notice.
But then Sabreliner sold its St Louis-based
MidCoast Aviation business to Jet Aviation in- The deal included a broad non-compete
agreement with Jet in the commercial market
- the company could pursue any domestic or
foreign military project, but its commercial
activity was largely limited to maintaining the
remaining Sabreliner fleet.
By that point, the Perryville-based unit of
Sabreliner was focused on a rapidly rising
defence business, swollen with demand for
maintaining several of the US military’s age-
ing fleets of aircraft, including the Learjet 31-
based C-21 and Beechcraft King Air-based
C-12. But it would have few options when
defence spending started to decline after
2010, with commercial business still inac-
cessible under the non-compete agreement.
By 2012, Sabreliner had laid off all but a
skeleton team administering financial and
legal affairs. Then Innovative Capital Hold-
ings – a Naples, Florida-based investment
firm – stepped in to purchase the company.
The acquisition price was never disclosed –
however, Innovative Capital’s website de-
scribes a strategy focused on buying aero-
space manufacturing companies with deals
priced up to $50 million.FUTURE INVESTMENT
Innovative Capital specialises in turnaround
jobs, especially within the aerospace industry.
It describes itself as an investment firm, draw-
ing a sharp distinction with private equity
firms driven by short-term financial objectives.
Innovative Capital is a long-term investor
that has ambitious goals for the Perryville-
based aviation services firm. Those objectives