Willis Lease Finance Corporation announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Willis Asset Management Limited, has purchased the business and assets of Total Engine Support Limited (“TES”), the consulting and asset management business of the TES Aviation Group.  TES is headquartered in Bridgend, Wales (UK).  With roughly 500 jet engines under management, TES is well known in the aviation industry as a leading asset management, technical services and consultancy business.  TES delivers bespoke, customer driven solutions to the owners and operators of aviation assets by leveraging a highly skilled work force, proprietary systems and decades of engine related data. Going forward, the same exceptional TES consultancy and management services will be offered through Willis Asset Management, with the further advantage for customers of access to the Willis Lease Finance platform, capital and nearly 250 owned and managed engines.       

“We have discussed for many years the goal of turning our world class technical team into a source of revenue by developing an asset management and technical services business and we began marketing these services, with great success, to our customers last year,” said Charles F. Willis, Chairman and CEO.  “With this investment, we have taken a significant leap forward in that process by bringing on the exceptional people who made TES the leader in engine consultancy and management, as well as the customer relationships, sophisticated systems and data that could have taken us years to develop on our own. We also are very excited to join the business community in Wales and look forward to growing the business quickly to deliver and enhance the great services that TES has provided for many years.”

“While we continue to grow our core leasing business, this investment allows us to expand horizontally, offering products and services across the asset life cycle that are complementary to the financing and surplus material solutions we already offer,” said Brian R. Hole, President of Willis Lease. “We believe that combining TES’s people and capabilities with our people, capital and existing assets gives us the ability to offer our combined customer base a very unique value proposition -- an independent and sophisticated view on fleet planning, owning, financing, operating, maintaining and transitioning out of aviation assets, as well as the ability to deliver solutions in each area. Whether through pure consultancy and management services, ordinary financing or custom programs like ConstantThrustTM, where we deliver asset financing and maintenance protection in one package, our goals are to help extract maximum value from owned or operated assets, give customers an independent understanding of their options, and deliver value-added solutions. We intend to demonstrate this value proposition, starting immediately.”