Story ID: 404_HeliAsset
Heli Asset Expanding U.S. Presence
By: Amy Laboda
Caption: 
Word Count: 308
Born in 2011 from the spinoff of Regourd Aviation’s helicopter department, Heli Asset is a global helicopter sales and acquisition service that manages its brokers and clients in what it says is a fresh, new way. The Paris-based company has offices on six continents and is currently offering 11 helicopters for sale.

“Typically brokers work within a territory,” explained managing director Emmanuel Dupuy, but helicopters, as you know, are complex, and frankly, there are pirates out there who take advantage of that. So we decided when we launched last year at Heli-Expo that we would do things differently. Each of our brokers is focused on a model of helicopter, for example, with an AgustaWestland specialist and others. That helps our brokers to interact with the market more accurately. Our sales agents track quality/price ratios of every serial number of every helicopter in the marketplace,” he told AIN. “That’s a couple of hundred serial numbers per broker. They know the condition of each, and we can help our clients make acquisitions that make sense.”

Heli Asset (Booth No. C3116) initially focused its sales efforts on utility helicopters, but in the last year it has increased sales of executive turbine helicopters, including Eurocopter, Bell and AgustaWestland models. The company offers its clients the ability to one-stop shop as well, with legal assistance and the ability to arrange financing, including trade-ins when necessary, to facilitate a sale, according to Depuy.

Heli Asset sold 18 helicopters last year. It is currently focusing on the Asia-Pacific, Brazil and Russia markets. “Our data shows that the largest market for helicopters is the U.S. and we believe it is set to increase in 2013,” Dupuy continued. In anticipation the company is expanding staff in the U.S. “We are certainly here at the show looking!” said Dupuy.