BBA Aviation cruising in line, acquires further aftermarket assets

BBA Aviation said third-quarter trading and cash flow remained in-line with its full year expectations, with revenue up 27% in what has been a transformative year to date.

BBA also announced that its Ontic legacy support business has agreed the $61.5m acquisition of a portfolio of avionics products from GE's aviation arm to support maturing aircraft models in the military and commercial aviation markets, to be supported by a transitional services agreement with GE Aviation.

The acquisition is expected to contribute $7.m of operating profit after an expected $1.6m of transition costs in the first year, plus $5m of capex.

Chief executive Simon Pryce said the deal was "strategically significant" and would help continue Ontic's strong growth.

The overall aftermarket division was said to be "performing as we expected", with Ontic delivering the anticipated second half uptick in revenue and ERO "showing signs of stability and small improvement despite tough markets".

Following September's sale of the ASIG commercial aviation services company for $202m and June's sale of six fixed base operations (FBOs) for $190m, Pryce said the group as a whole was performing well despite the slow growth of its primary markets.

North American business and general aviation flight movements remain modestly higher, recording 0.6% growth in the year to end September, just down from the 0.7% in the same period last year.

Pryce said the integration of the Landmark Aviation acquisition continued to make progress, with synergies ahead of plan, and actions in place to drive annualised synergies of at least $35m in 2017.

In the flight support segment, the enlarged Signature business grew revenues 56% and 4.1% on a like-for-like basis at constant currencies and Pryce continues to see opportunities for continued market outperformance.

Shares in BBA were up 0.9% to 249.26p after almost two hours of trading in London on Tuesday.