“‘What do they know about the helicopter business? They’ll be begging to be bought out in six months.’ That’s what the rest of the industry was saying about us when we bought the civil division of what had been Boeing Helicopters back in 1998,” recalled Mesa, Ariz.-based MD Helicopters Inc. (MDHI) president and CEO Henk Schaeken. (MDHI is owned by the broadly diversified Dutch investment firm RDM Holdings.) “Well, we’ve had some rough spots since then but we’ve climbed the learning curve, and now we’re making helicopters that are going to make us some money.”
It is possible to build helicopters unprofitably, and that’s what MDHI did for much of last year. That’s when deliveries slumped from 2000’s peak of 41 delivered rotorcraft to an all-time low of just 15 last year. No matter the size of a slump, it’s never good news for any business, especially one under the management of new owners struggling to learn the ropes.
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