Egeria acquires aircraft painting company MAAS Aviation

MAAS Aviation has achieved significant growth over the last five years and has developed successful partnerships with OEM and airline customers with the company becoming an important service provider to Airbus Group at the latter’s manufacturing facilities in Hamburg, Germany and at its US Final Assembly Line in Mobile, Alabama. In addition, the company repaints aircrafts at dedicated MRO paint shops located at Maastricht Aachen Airport and Woensdrecht in The Netherlands and in Mobile, Alabama. The company benefits from long term customer contracts which provide stability and a foundation on which to build.

As well as painting commercial aircraft, MAAS has also developed expertise in the design and procurement of state-of-the-art paint shops. This capability, combined with its aircraft painting expertise has contributed to the company’s growth in recent years. MAAS’ paint shop infrastructure ranks amongst the best in the world.

The investment by Egeria provides the company with the financial backing and support to enable management to deliver further planned growth and to meet known opportunities driven by the increase in demand for aircraft painting as a result of the macro growth drivers in the global aviation sector.

Egbert Prenger, partner at Egeria: “Its expertise and strong market position enables MAAS Aviation to capture the strong potential for growth. We are excited to be part of the company’s future. Egeria takes a lot of comfort from the extent of the company’s long-term client relationships and business with OEM manufacturers as this is clear evidence of the company’s ability to achieve and maintain industry leading standards. We believe that MAAS Aviation, also thanks to its motivated management and skilled staff, has all the ingredients at its disposal to develop considerably over the coming years. As this requires a more extended scope than that of our regular investments, MAAS Aviation will become a part of Egeria Evergreens.”

Tim Macdougald, CEO of MAAS Aviation: “The investment by Egeria is a very positive step for the company and provides the backing to invest in the personnel and infrastructure to support its existing operations and more importantly to deliver the company’s future growth plans. The company has achieved significant organic growth in recent years and the time is right to back this up with Egeria’s support which will assist and indeed accelerate further international growth. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Darragh Hall for his contribution to the company he founded almost 40 years ago. Mark Gidman, our group COO, myself and all of our colleagues are excited to have the opportunity to take the company forward.”

Departing majority shareholder and founder Darragh Hall said: “It has been a real privilege for me to have worked all these years with the team and be part of what MAAS has now become; I cannot overstate the quality and commitment of the staff and current management team who have shaped this business into what it is today, in particular I would like to thank Tim Macdougald, Mark Gidman, Fran Carew and the whole team of wonderful people who get the results week in week out. I am thrilled that the company has in Egeria found a new partner that will allow the company scale even greater heights. Our philosophy has always been to provide quality and the business will follow …… I truly believe the future is bright.”

About MAAS Aviation (www.maasaviation.com)

Founded in 1983, MAAS Aviation group is a leading specialist aircraft painting company with operations in the Netherlands, Germany and Alabama, USA. The name MAAS is an anacronym of Maastricht Aviation Aircraft Services and references the river Maas on which the city of Maastricht is located. Having originally operated in Ireland at both Shannon and Dublin airports, the company relocated to a new continental Europe base at Maastricht airport in the Netherlands in 1988. The company has forged a very successful partnership with Airbus Group and currently operates four dedicated OEM paint shops for Airbus at the latter’s manufacturing facilities in Hamburg, Germany and in Mobile, Alabama. The company also operates a further five MRO aircraft paint shops in the Netherlands and in Mobile, Alabama resulting in the company’s position as a global player in the aircraft painting industry. The company employs 300 employees and is currently painting approximately 400 aircraft a year with plans to grow both employment and capacity over the next five years.

About Egeria

Egeria is an independent Dutch investment company founded in 1997, which focuses on medium-sized companies. Egeria invests in healthy companies with an enterprise value between EUR 50 million and EUR 350 million. Egeria Evergreen has investments in five companies (DuraVent, M&G Group, Koninklijke Mosa, Sif Group and Vendor Toilethygiëne). Other activities are: Egeria Funds (11 companies), Egeria Real Estate Investments, and Egeria Real Estate Development. Egeria’s portfolio companies have a combined turnover of over EUR 2.3 billion and employ close to 10,000 people.

In 2018, Egeria has launched Egeria^do, a corporate giving program sponsoring projects in the fields of the arts, culture and social objectives. Egeria^do is structured in the same way as the other funds comprising the Amsterdam investment company with an assigned budget of EUR 5 million.

For more information, please visit: http://www.egeriagroup.com.