ST Aero buys Pemco’s 737 STCs and Tampa MRO

Three months ago, on 5 March, US-based MRO and freighter conversion specialist Pemco World Air Services filed a voluntary petition to restructure under Chapter 11 protection. Pemco’s majority owner Sun Capital Partners, through a subsidiary, provided DIP financing to keep the company going throughout the restructuring process, with the announced intention of emerging from bankruptcy “within the next ninety days.”

Ninety-four days later, Singapore Technologies Engineering, through its US subsidiary Vision Technologies Aerospace, announced that it had made a successful bid at the bankruptcy auction for Pemco’s MRO facility in Tampa, Florida, “and certain assets of Pemco World Air Services Inc, including the Boeing 737 freighter conversion Supplemental Type Certificates.” The purchase price was US$49.7 million. Pemco’s 737 STCs covered passenger-to-freighter conversion of the 737-300 and -400, and passenger-to-combi conversion of the 737-400. In addition to the Tampa MRO facility, Pemco also had a conversion facility in Dothan, Alabama, but this is in the process of being closed and is not part of the ST purchase.

In 2009 Pemco acquired a 757-200 P-to-F conversion STC from Alcoa/SIE, and expanded it to include passenger-to-combi conversions, but this was not included in the ST acquisition. (Not surprising, since ST Aerospace already holds STCs for both P-to-F and P-to-C 757 conversions)

ST Engineering, through it’s ST Aerospace arm, also recently bought a 35% stake in EFW, the MRO and conversion arm of European aerospace giant EADS, and is developing a P-to-F conversion program for the Airbus A330-200 and A330-300.