Lynn Tilton runs Patriarch Partners, a New York equity company that specializes in buying and turning around distressed companies. In 2005 Patriarch acquired MD Helicopters. Tilton described MD as “long broken” when she personally took charge of it, bringing suppliers current, reestablishing customer support and restarting aircraft production. Last year Tilton hinted that Patriarch might expand its aircraft holdings to include a very light jet manufacturer. Those plans apparently are now on hold, with Tilton calling it “[not] the best use of our capital.” However, she talked with HAI Convention News before Heli-Expo about the road to restoring MD to profitability, and the company’s future.
Reports suggest that you have poured as much as $200 million into MD Helicopters and that the company turned profitable in the fourth quarter of 2007. Is this true and do you expect to post a profit for 2008 and 2009?
We had a good year [2008]. We could have had a better year had we not fallen back on our deliveries. We expected to deliver more than 60 aircraft in 2008 and we [were], I think, 10 aircraft short on the deliveries because we had a little bit of a setback on some parts that kept aircraft on the line too long. It is because I [re]built this company from the bottom-up that we understand our cost on every aircraft. We make money on every aircraft we sell and we are still in very good shape.
