Signature Flight Support has extended its global FBO network into Italy with the formation of a joint venture with local aviation company SEA Prime S.p.A. The FBO chain acquired a 60-percent share of Prime Aviation Services, the European company’s service division, which operates a newly refurbished FBO at Milan Linate—Italy’s first dedicated business aviation airport—and satellite facilities at Milan Malpensa, Rome Ciampino and Venice Marco Polo Airports, all of which were rebranded to add four more Signature locations. The Signature network now stands at 31 bases in EMEA and 199 overall worldwide.
The BBA Aviation subsidiary also completed the final detail in its blockbuster purchase of Landmark Aviation earlier this year, with the announcement last week that it has sold the six FBOs where there was major redundancy, as per the U.S. Dept. of Justice approval of the acquisition.
The former Landmark locations at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y.; Washington Dulles International; Scottsdale (Ariz.) Airport; Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport; California’s Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport; and part of the Landmark facilities at Fresno Yosemite International Airport were sold for $190 million to KSL Capital Partners, a private-equity firm specializing in travel and leisure businesses. Denver-based KSL has tapped Jeffery Ross—the former president and CEO of Ross Aviation, which was acquired by Landmark Aviation in 2014—to manage these six FBOs.