American multi-national private equity investors Carlyle Group is looking to sell the world’s largest seaplane operator; Trans Maldives Airways (TMA) to a potential new buyer, Bloomberg reported on Friday, 22nd July.<\/p>\n
The Maldives-based seaplane operator reportedly valued between USD500 million to USD700 million, is currently in consideration for a mega-sale. An anonymous source on Bloomberg claims Carlyle and co-investors King Street Capital Management and Davidson Kempner Capital Management held initial talks with potential advisors for the a possible TMA divestment.<\/p>\n
The seaplane operator, with the largest seaplane fleet in the world, faced heavily fiscal blows amid Covid-19 pandemic when the Maldivian tourism industry came to a standstill for three-months amid border closure.<\/p>\n
The airline was forced to ground its fleet of 57 aircraft in April 2020.<\/p>\n
In 2021, Carlyle Group became the majority shareholder of TMA through a massive acquisition from US-based Bain Capital and Chinese Conglomerate Tempus Group. The acquisition restructured TMA’s debt, which at the time was struggling to pay off its outstanding USD300 million loan.<\/p>\n
Bain Capital and Tempus Group acquired the seaplane operator from international investment firm Blackstone Inc. in 2017 for an acquisition cost of USD550 million.<\/p>\n
Trans Maldivian Airways (TMA) is the oldest aviation service provider in the Maldives, launching its operations in 1989 with a helicopter fleet; dubbed the “Hummingbird Helicopters”.<\/p>\n
The aviation company transformed into a seaplane-only operation in 1999, after which it was renamed Trans Maldivian Airways in 2000.<\/p>\n
TMA’s sole competitor in the island nation Maldivian Air Taxi were merged together under the TMA brand after it was acquired by Blackstone Inc. in 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
American multi-national private equity investors Carlyle Group is looking to sell the world’s largest seaplane operator; Trans Maldives Airways (TMA) to a potential new buyer, Bloomberg reported on Friday, 22nd July. The Maldives-based seaplane operator reportedly valued between USD500 million to USD700 million, is currently in consideration for a mega-sale. An anonymous source on Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2423,2429],"tags":[162,165,1356,1860,2095,2148],"class_list":{"0":"post-3735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"category-tourism","9":"tag-aviation","10":"tag-aviation-industry","11":"tag-maldives-tourism","12":"tag-seaplanes","13":"tag-tma","14":"tag-trans-maldivian-airways"},"yoast_head":"\n