Early years Signature Aviation originates to
W. Wilson Cobbett Ltd, an industrial belting works originally based in Scotland. Its early name came from its two founders, Sir William Fenton and Walter Cobbett, who established the company during 1879 to manufacture textile belts for use on industrial machinery. For its first thirty years, the production and sale of these belts comprised the company's main commercial activity; over time, Wilson Cobbett expanded into numerous specialist industrial niches and developed a global presence. By this point, the company was structured into two major divisions: Aviation and Materials Technologies. and
UNC Airwork Corp, formerly a unit of American conglomerate
General Electric. By 1998, Signature Flight Support had expanded to possess the world's largest chain of fixed base operators (FBOs), operating a total of 41 facilities across the globe.
Twenty-first century During 2000, BBA Group conducted a major divestment, selling off its Mintex brake pad division in exchange for £389m. Around this time, the company also diversified into the flight training sector, purchasing
Oxford Aviation, then the largest professional pilot training organisation in Europe, for £55.4 million. During the following year, BBA Group bought American business
Aircraft Service International Group ('ASIG'), the acquisition of which reportedly doubled the firm's presence in the commercial ground handling market, for $25m. During 2002, the group's chief executive Roy McGlone stated that management's strategy at that point was to focus on its FBO ventures and to dispose of non-core businesses. As a sign of the company's changes, BBA Group was reclassified on the
London Stock Exchange from the engineering sector to the transport sector. That same year,
Ontic, a legacy aerospace components supplier, was acquired; Oxford Aviation was sold during the following year. BBA Group's name was changed to
BBA Aviation in 2007 to mark its transformation to a focused aviation group. During 2011, it bought
GE Aviation's fuel measurement business for £38.3m and a new services base at
Bozeman in
Montana, United States, for $10.5m. In 2012, BBA Aviation purchased
Dryden Air Services and
PLH Aviation in Canada, securing a presence in the Canadian market. During 2013, it acquired
Maguire Aviation Group for $69 million. That same year, BBA Aviation reportedly withdrew from talks with
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise over acquiring aircraft maintenance provider
StandardAero. In 2014, BBA Aviation sold APPH (comprising UK sites and their US Wichita site) for $128 million to
Héroux-Devtek Inc. In 2015, BBA Aviation significantly increased the reach of the Signature Flight Support network through the acquisition of
Landmark Aviation from
The Carlyle Group for $2.1 billion; aviation periodical
Flight International described the deal as being "the largest acquisition in the history of the business aviation services industry". During 2017, its ASIG subsidiary was sold off for $202 million. Early that same year, BBA Aviation and
Gama Aviation agreed to merge their
charter and management operations together, reportedly forming the largest aircraft management business in the United States as a result. In 2018, BBA Aviation acquired fuel specialist
EPIC Aviation; that same year, it also bought
Firstmark Corp, a provider of proprietary components and subsystems, which was incorporated into the Ontic portfolio. During late 2019, BBA Group decided to sell Ontic to
CVC Capital Partners in exchange for $1.365 billion; the firm also announced a special dividend to shareholders totalling $835 million from the proceeds of the sale. To reflect its change in business focus, the company's board also elected to rename the group
Signature Aviation to better align the firm with its most significant brand in its core market. In February 2021,
Bill Gates–owned
Cascade Investment,
Blackstone Group, and private equity firm
Global Infrastructure Partners made a $4.7 billion offer to acquire Signature Aviation. As a result of the acquisition, Cascade's stake increased from 19% to 30%. ==Operations==