flyExclusive is to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) via Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) EG Acquisition Corp.
The firm has a pre-transaction equity value of $600m and is expected to provide up to $310m in proceeds, including $85m of committed convertible notes and $225m of SPAC cash.
The SPAC, EG Acquisition, sponsored by EnTrust Global and GMF Capital — which has invested in MySky, raised the $225m in its initial public offering in May 2021.
Under the terms, flyExclusive and EG will adopt flyExclusive as the corporate operating brand. flyExclusive founder and CEO Jim Segrave will lead the combined firm.
“We are excited to enter the public markets through our business combination with EG Acquisition Corp. This capital, combined with our leadership team’s significant aviation industry experience, will allow flyExclusive to rapidly grow our workforce, significantly expand our fleet and further invest in our customer experience, while maintaining our core values and family first culture,” said Segrave.
flyExclusive said it will gain undisclosed “significant” additional capital. And the current leadership team will retain control.
Gregg Hymowitz, CEO and director, EG Acquisition and chairman and CEO, EnTrust Global said: “flyExclusive has become one of the fastest-growing providers of premium private jet charter experiences thanks to their world-class leadership team, business model designed to maximise utilisation and flight unit economics and the consistent high-quality service they provide to customers.”
Via the purchase of convertible notes that were entered into simultaneously with the signing of the agreement, investors are providing an additional $85m to flyExclusive. The notes will convert into shares of the combined company upon the consummation of the business combination at a price of $10 per share (subject to adjustment in certain instances).
The $85m will be mainly used for aircraft acquisition.
Segrave added: “flyExclusive previously announced the purchase of 30 Citation CJ3+ light aircraft with deliveries scheduled to start third quarter of next year. With this additional capital, we are planning to further expand our fractional ownership program to include mid and super-mid aircraft to provide more options to our valued customers.”
The transaction should be wrapped up in the first quarter of 2023.
There have now been over 90 private equity investments in business aviation. Five of those transactions have totalled more than $400m.
Last week, Directional Aviation’s Kenn Ricci announced his companies Flexjet, Sentient Jet, FXAIR, Private Fly and Sirio will merge with a SPAC called Horizon Acquisition Corp.
