Yikes, so yesterday Boeing apparently sold Jeppesen and ForeFlight to private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $10B USD, backed by Apollo and Blackstone, likely to pay off debt.
Jeppesen is a maker of real-world navdata and charts, and also the source of data for Navigraph. (Other sources being NavBlue owned by Airbus, and LIDO owned by Lufthansa.)
Hoping it doesn’t negatively affect Navigraph.
Why would it? Jepp knows it’s business which is highly technical. New owners will want a continued return on their investment, so why would they curtail this small income stream?
I have a more critical and less optimistic view of private equity involvement. To get a return they will want to squeeze for “efficiencies” in order to resell at a higher price. I always worry this comes at the price of quality, loss of talent/innovation, and/or higher prices for consumers. Regardless, interesting news.
Indeed. Recent history is not on our side here. There will definitely be impact, and I wonder how much of it will be obvious, and how much of it will slowly change in the background, out of view of we the consumers.
They won’t curtail it, they’ll just monetize it further and further, until no one wants to be bothered anymore. En****ification.
It’s possible those big PE houses are more interested in Boeing and it’s extensive ecosystem beyond Jeppesen. And hopefully the ‘value’ they expect to ‘unlock’ from Jeppesen is based more decoupling it from Boeing, and not from squeezing it too hard for short term boost.
Short term ROI is the only thing private equity ghouls care about. I’ve never once seen anything good come from private equity control, and that includes my own employer.
And the PE world is a very incestuous and 99.99% of time is about money manipulation. There’s a lot of fake internal transactions where one would sell to the other for a higher price so that people can get their cut during those transactions. I haven’t seen anything positive at all with PE.
I think Asobo is also partnered with private equity now, and in the absence of any real inside info or communication, I can’t help but attribute some of the 2024 launch issues to this.
At the end of the day, there is demand for quality flight simulation, and navdata products like the Jeppesen charts from Navigraph - I just hope the PE parasites don’t end up squeezing the life out of it.
Yes, for me right now the word is “interesting”.
Very accurate assessment…
I much prefer Navblue or Lido charts, Jeppesen is a cluttered mess in comparison. Maybe navigraph can strike a deal with Navblue instead.
