Blade Air Mobility to acquire Trinity Air Medical
Blade Air Mobility has entered into a $23m definitive agreement to acquire US-based organ logistics company Trinity Air Medical. It will purchase 100% of the capital stock of Trinity.
CEO Rob Wiesenthal said: “Given the existence of landing pads at most hospitals today, we have the ability to immediately replace Trinity’s ambulances with helicopters on certain hospital-to-hospital missions.”
Wiesenthal said Trinity’s long-term relationships with organ procurement organisations and transplant centres would integrate well with Blade’s mission availability.
Seth Bacon, CEO of Trinity, who will become CEO of Blade MediMobility, said: “Recent advances in organ preservation technology have resulted in consistently increasing demand for point-to-point organ air transport over longer distances.”
Blade does not expect the expansion to be capital intensive.
Blade’s MediMobility and jet revenues grew to $6.5m year-on-year in the most recent fiscal quarter, compared with $2.6m. Trinity had revenues of about $16m in calendar year 2020. The combination of businesses is expected to create the largest organ air transport company in the US.
Will Heyburn, Blade’s chief financial officer, said: “Like Blade, Trinity is asset-light and neither owns nor operates aircraft, thus rapid expansion is not capital intensive. We expect the combination of Trinity’s substantial flight volume with Blade’s fast-growing MediMobility business to create the largest dedicated organ air transport company in the United States and enable us to secure more dedicated aircraft, resulting in better availability and pricing for the hospitals we collectively serve,”
Scott Wunsch, chief operating officer of Trinty, who will now occupy the same role at Blade MediMobility, said: “We are already working hand-in-hand with Blade’s MediMobility team on organ air transport missions.”
Transaction Highlights:
- Blade to purchase 100% of the capital stock of Trinity for an upfront purchase price of approximately $23m and potential additional contingent consideration based on the achievement by Trinity of certain EBITDA growth targets over a three-year period
- Seth Bacon and Scott Wunsch will become CEO and COO of Blade MediMobility, respectively, and have agreed to five-year non-competition agreements. All Trinity employees will be incentivized and are expected to remain at the Company, post-transaction