Story ID: 1030513alerts
Milestone Places $1.75B Helicopter Order at Heli-Expo
By: Chad Trautvetter
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Word Count: 220
Global helicopter lessor Milestone Aviation Group of Dublin, Ireland, placed orders for up to 74 helicopters from Eurocopter and Sikorsky worth more than $1.75 billion today at Heli-Expo 2013, which opened this morning in Las Vegas. These additional helicopters will double the assets at Milestone.

The Eurocopter deal announced this morning is for up to 15 EC225 Super Pumas and five EC175s, contracts worth as much as $540 million. This valuation is based on a price of about $29 million each for the EC225s and $18.2 million each for the EC175s. Milestone will start taking deliveries of the EC225s this year, but it won’t begin receiving EC175s until 2016. It will also be taking shipments this year for an order for 16 EC225s that it placed last year at Heli-Expo.

But the Sikorsky order–valued at about $1.2 billion, including options–announced this afternoon was the big prize. This deal is for 23 Sikorsky S-92 heavy twins and seven S-76Ds worth $667 million, as well as options for 14 more S-92s and 10 S-76Ds worth $546 million. Deliveries of S-92s and S-76Ds to Milestone are expected to start this year and continue through 2017, Sikorsky said.

Founded in 2010, Milestone currently has more than 79 helicopters, valued at more than $1 billion, leased to various operators throughout the world.