Jessie: morning and welcome back to the VIP seat. We have lot of big stories today. back, buckle up, and let's off. All right, Preston, I don't even know where to begin this morning. There is so much happening over the last week. it's gonna be an interesting episode for sure.

Preston Holland: Yeah, last week we released our episode with Kenny Dichter and Robert Withers, our new partners at RealJet, and a lot of news broke. so we're playing a little bit of catch up, but that's okay. It's great because we've got a lot of interesting business aviation stories. First off the top is Jack is out at Flyhouse.

Jessie: Yeah, out or somewhere else within the organization. we haven't gotten clear understanding of where he's going to be that says that he'll have a continuing role, but he will no longer be president of Flyhouse. Okay, so Sam Michelman, who was the one of the original founders, is going to be stepping into the role at least temporarily, maybe for a long term. And those who don't know this, because I really had to do my research, I think we were all at CJI Miami a couple years ago, saw him on stage saying that, okay, you know, I want this to be a multi-billion dollar company. We have reactions to that, but I won't go into that for the moment. but what I did not realize is that he actually had a pretty fundamental role in JetEdge back in the day. So he was the founder. ⁓ a law firm and he represented Jet Edge not only in their deal when they rose about sixty million dollars at that time, he also represented them in another lawsuit. So he actually does have some background in aviation, not as an operator, but at least on the legal side, which I thought was pretty interesting.

Preston Holland: And another note is that wasn't actually who's taking over. That was the benevolent capital guy who was on stage. The guy who's taking over is the attorney who has been rumored to kind of be in the background pulling the strings, right? Who's really doing a lot of the M&A deals, who's doing a lot of the corporate structuring, things like that. Jack was the industry hired gun.

Jessie: Hm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: and he came in, he was the face, he was the industry guy, he had done it before he understood what a 135 was, right, where I think that a lot of people that you know, come into our industry, you really have no idea what we're all about and kind of what we do. And so he is taking over. The press release reads that Jack is stepping into a different role in the company. The scuttlebutt is a little different. The scuttlebutt says that he's out. So I think that it's probably somewhere in the middle, right? There's a very nice press release that was released. Thank you so much, Jack, for your contributions to the industry. And Jack is ⁓ of us, right? Like he is an industry guy. ⁓ so yeah, so to see, see that change over happen also kind of through the rumor mill. And if you look on LinkedIn, this is again, this is piecing together information that is not completely solidified, but you look on LinkedIn, there's some people from Flyhouse that are now looking for jobs. So there a reduction in force of some sort around this same time, the last couple of weeks.

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: So it's interesting, we will see kind of what, how the rest of this plays out. I think Jessie one question I have for you is you have an operator background. What would you do if you're stepping in at Flyhouse today?

Jessie: yeah. Well ⁓ know, I said this from the very beginning, ⁓ that it's not only difficult to be an operator for one, it's also ⁓ ⁓ i that's hard enough but it feels like what flyhouse was trying to do was to to be everything all at the same time so i I would probably simplify the business. I mean look we don't know I mean if there's any problems or not to be fair. You know there's there's a personnel change. Why? We don't know. It's all speculative at this point. If there is a problem in the business or if there's some sort of goals that aren't being met, although I will say those goals were very, ⁓ high and probably unrealistic. Well mean they were personnel

Preston Holland: Lofty. They're a lofty.

Jessie: Projected to do $420 million this year. ⁓ will we see $420 million this year now? I don't know. and we're midway through the year, so maybe targets were being that. I don't know. It's all speculation, but I would simplify the business and just understand that I I just don't know. The goals were always like a little too nuts for me. I I just I I think they took off more than they can chew in terms of projections, but that's two cents from the sidelines, and who actually knows?

Preston Holland: Yeah, I think that the strategy, it just feels chaotic, right? To me, this and this is my, this is completely my opinion. But the strategy feels chaotic where we bought a bank and we bought an operator and we bought an MRO and we're, bought Jet ASAP and we bought, you know, uh, what was it? Jet Smith. So like they bought all of these companies and tried to stitch them together to create this and not only that.

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: I think stitching together companies is not a crazy concept. I think the problem was saying, we're going to do that and then we're going to double revenue every year and get to like a $2 billion revenue run rate what, five years, four years, five years, something like that. Like that's, ⁓ a

Jessie: Right, right. Which from our interview with Kenny said took them nine years to get to like a billion. Yeah.

Preston Holland: Yeah, exactly. After they had done it before and like, were incredibly good at being in the right rooms, right? Like, ⁓ look at how do you grow a business ⁓ that part the world? And again, outside looking in kind of perception, but it's being in the right room, it's having the right relationships, it's being the to call, you know, when when you need a flight or, know, something like that. And so

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: I think that it just feels a little disjointed to me. I think what happens over the next six months is really gonna be telling. There's a lot of naysayers out there about Flyhouse. And frankly, 50 % of it is probably fair criticism. think that it's a fair criticism of they're doing. I think that as we see them close out the fundraising round that they announced earlier this year, you know.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Maybe.

Preston Holland: Usually there's an announcement of a closing out. I don't know if it's closed out or not. You now have kind of the scale guy stepping in to kind of run ⁓ the not the aviation guy, but the corporate guy to ⁓ up next evolution of fly house and grow. They claim 2,300 on their platform, which is just broker. they're a broker. You have access to all 2,300.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. It's like it's like the Am ⁓ it's like the Amazon of private jets. Right, right.

Preston Holland: A.S.S.H.A. airplanes. Yeah, right, exactly. They only, I will say, I went and looked at Private Aviation Safety Alliance, flyingprivate.org, little plug for Jessie, I saw like 15-ish total tails, 15 or 16 total tails, you know, a G650ER, a G4, G4SP, like two a couple of Global Expresses. So like they've got some legitimate metal as an operator.

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: But they're not a big operator. Like they're small. Like I don't know what. Would 16 be considered small or medium? I mean like that's not big.

Jessie: Medium, know, substantial. I anything over ten, I think you're you're in a larger operation. Most companies don't have ten aircraft in the one hundred thirty five business. That's pretty big, you know. Not NetJet's big, but yeah. ⁓

Preston Holland: Yeah, right, so pretty big, not NetJet's big, not FlexJet big, not Flag Exclusive big, not Wheels Up big, not Household Name big, not Solaris big. So I think that get to that revenue number, you just have to get so much scale and so quickly that, I again, I think time will tell here.

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: curious to see exactly how they execute on that revenue number.

Jessie: I mean F my view on this is look, ⁓ aviation businesses are hard. Like they're really hard. They have very slim margins. It's difficult to scale it's difficult to scale one kind of aviation business, much less many different ones. And even if you look at Amazon, which is like the quintessential platform business, you know, has the r has the consumer side and the wholesale side, which was what Flyhouse was saying they wanted to do, still were a bookseller first. You know, they sold books and then over time they started to evolve into the marketplace. I think when you try to bite off everything at the same time, you can Get into a lot of difficulty really fast because it's a complicated business and it's an expensive business, and mistakes are very expensive. So know, probably too much. ⁓ and I bet you the founders, you know, especially having looked at JetEdge and seeing how ⁓ successful that was, you But you had the founder Bill, you know, who like you know, he was it wasn't just a hire, like that was his baby, and he built it and he grew it and he made a great exit, and now he's raising even more money. But those are not those people.

Preston Holland: Right.

Jessie: People don't exist everywhere. And I think too it's just different when it's someone who's hired to run the company versus someone who's like the founder and created the the company. I think that's that's a different perspective.

Preston Holland: Yep, exactly. I think we'll see what kind of comes out over the next couple of weeks. I mean, there is a copious amount of scuttlebutt out there. ⁓ covered a very small minutia of it. I unfortunately, the events that have played out

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Preston Holland: are playing into the scuttlebutt. A lot of things that people have been saying for the last two years, I remember distinctly, you and I were in the same room in Miami when we heard Uber for private jets and $2 billion. You and I were both sitting there. I think both of our phones started blowing up and it was like, I remember three people texting me, did he say what I think he just said?

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well there was like an audible like groan from like everybody in the room when that number was thrown out there. 'Cause it's just it's just so much. And it's like and we know the world that we're in right now. This is not like right after COVID, you know, those are right after COVID numbers. Yeah.

Preston Holland: Exactly. So I don't know. would to have that marketing budget. I mean, that would be fun. It would be cool, you know, be able to go to Sail GP and all of that good stuff. We'll see. We'll see what happens. I think the next six months is going to be probably the maker break. If I had to guess here is, you're going to to get to that number to be able to keep raising money, right? Cause you have to continue that growth flywheel to be able to continue to do this. Uber for private jets is the dream.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Preston Holland: I was doing an interesting podcast with their sourcing guys, a couple of like ⁓ AI technical guys. ⁓ Dan Harris put out the podcast. like in, I came out in December. I listed it this week. And I it was interesting the way that they were approaching it. Again, you know, I'm there like talking to the podcast. You know, I was driving down the road and I'm like, you're forgetting about relocation. You're forgetting about AOGs. You're forgetting about like they're creating this like dynamic marketplace.

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: for operators and how they think about sourcing and people on the platform and all of that automatic bid pricing, which is nirvana. Having instant pricing is nirvana and everybody's trying to reach it. I don't know, I think the next six months can be really telling and the comms that come out from there, I think that frankly the industry's gonna be watching pretty close.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And look, I I know everyone always wants the everyone's always looking for the bad man. I've realized this like more and more recently. Like, man, do we love to bet against any entrepreneur out there, you know, especially when they're raising a lot of money. You know, I think that the fur when you start to raise a lot of money, everybody wants to look at you and say, like, okay, you're not gonna succeed. But who knows? You know, all of this is speculation, you know. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: That's pretty unique to our business, say, though. Our segment specifically is very, yeah, it's pretty judgy. Venture capitalists, at the end of the day, are placing 1,000 bets and hoping that one of them has a 10,000x return. And they're assuming that 999 are gonna fail. And so it's like, go, try, do. Our industry is very specific in being kind of naysayers, so.

Jessie: Shudgy

Preston Holland: again, I think that the next six months is really gonna be pretty telling.

Jessie: It and for some good reason. Like we've s we've seen a lot of epic failures, over the last twenty years. But again th Yeah.

Preston Holland: Yeah. Well, in our business, it's super expensive, right? Like, you can't bootstrap. Like, you can't really bootstrap like a multi-billion dollar company. You have to have investments.

Jessie: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But let's see how it goes. I I don't remain cautiously optimistic, I will say in my view, but you never How about that? ⁓

Preston Holland: Yep, exactly. You never know. Well, moving on to our favorite segment of the week is Mile High Madness. I have one. Jessie and I typically don't share what we're gonna share ahead of time because we want each other to have genuine reactions. But I had a feeling that we might have picked the same one. And it turns out we did. Just because, yeah, because of the subjective category. But a listener actually sent this one to me and was like, hey, you need to do this on Mile High Madness. So I said, okay, great.

Jessie: Hey. Uh-huh. From content alone.

Preston Holland: So this is Jake Paul who has mini cows on a private jet. like frankly, play in sweet home Alabama. mean, heck yeah. But I am imagining the smell. I'm imagining the smell on this thing. Like, he's really good though at social media.

Jessie: This is like the flight of my dreams. No, I bet you they washed those cows before they got on that plate, I guarantee you. They did not go on there unwashed. They had a nice little scrub a dub before they got on but there's yeah I

Preston Holland: So, it's still, so, mean, after I give my dog a bath, it still kinda stinks.

Jessie: I want mini cows so bad by the way. They're really difficult to get. People don't want to just like sell you a mini cow. Like people are weird about it. They don't want you breeding, so like you have to have experience. But I if you're Jake Paul with a private jet, you get whatever you want.

Preston Holland: Yeah, that's a good point. He's kind of been on the private jet circuit, by the way. I've seen him on a couple podcasts talking about how great his private jet is. So good for him. We love private aviation in regular social media.

Jessie: You know We do. And it just goes to show you that as many naysayers as there are out there about the private jet industry, look at how many views and how many people want to be in the exact seat that he is in at the same time. So I say brush off the haters and we'll continue to love our industry.

Preston Holland: And welcome to the private jet class, early SpaceX employees.

Jessie: so mine this week, since I couldn't have ⁓ the animals on board, ⁓ gotta say, Outlier Jets, kudos to you for getting Johnny Hildebrandt on your ⁓ doing some sort of collab on your airplane. I absolutely love this guy. ⁓ brought some dumb to wash it down with. And careful with that bathroom door. Last month one of Wykey's friends slammed it shut so hard they did something with the cabin pressure and Tarantino vomited all over the. Okay, so for those like who haven't seen this guy, Johnny Hildebrandt, he is an impersonator of like the private equity guys and all of his a PE I guess so good. So Outlier Jets somehow did a collab with him and I think it was really funny and really well done. So kudos to you guys. keep a coming.

Preston Holland: I love PE guy. Yep, exactly. No, that's a really good one. I did text, here's a free social media idea because I tried to get somebody to do it. There's a guy on X, his name's Freddie. He's from Germany and like, he's gone super viral. JJ Watt hosted him at a really fancy hotel in Houston. He's like all over TikTok now of other people documenting Freddie's journey. and he needs to get from Houston to Oklahoma City for an Ella Langley concert, like on Friday. So marketing stunt, somebody sponsor Freddie. I want somebody to do it. So there's some free marketing advice that you get on the VIP seat.

Jessie: can reach out to us on the LinkedIn or the X or everywhere that we are. ⁓

Preston Holland: Yeah, exactly. moving on to our next story, is a very hot topic button for Jessie, and this is to do with crew rest.

Jessie: Yes, I will try to like maintain my composure. ⁓ but so for those who don't know, I spent at least two years, meet not only myself, many other people on one of the FAA's rest and duty rulemaking committees related to duty and rest. and many years, and this also was not the first one, this was like the second one. Essentially, you know, and we had science, we had ⁓ fatigue researchers on the committee, we had labor unions, we had tons of charter operators, all these people came in a room together for multiple years studying the research, understanding. was going on to produce a beautiful report for the FAA, which they promptly just stuck on the website and never did anything about. what we've heard this week now is that some of that, which I we knew was going to happen because these were the exact discussions happening within that arc, was NetJets was going to have a problem when it had its big airplanes that needed to fly for 17 hours straight, that they wouldn't be able to do that because of current existing rest and duty rules. So right now, ⁓ they're only a fly allowed to fly up to sixteen hours with four crew members, and there is now an exemption they just filed with the FAA to extend this to seventeen. which ⁓ you'd be surprised. People have gotten special exemptions for rules, ⁓ I am personally very frustrated with this because ⁓ We spent years recommending to the FAA how this could be done and how they could change the rules to make this work. And they promptly ignored all of that work that we did, put it in the trash, and now NetJets is trying to revive it and get it just for themselves. So interesting story.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I think that the biggest problem here is the proprietary nature filing for an exemption because the airplane can go 17 hours. Like that's their whole argument is that the airplane can go there. So we need an exemption so that we can go there. ⁓ And 135 rules versus 91 rules being different, you know, that's where the clampdown happens. logical, though, to be able to for your four person crew to go

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Preston Holland: the distance with the airplane, especially if it's that close. I forgive me if I'm that ignorant, but an extra 30 minutes per set of crew, is that gonna like all of a sudden lead to significant increases in fatality? Is that the argument against why they wouldn't do something like this?

Jessie: So, and this is discussed at length for many, many pages and was discussed for many, many, many hours within that room that we were in discussing this, is that there are ways to do this safely, no doubt about it. And I'm I actually I I'm not a hundred percent sure because we can't see what it is, but I would bet you Netjets has thought through this very thoughtfully and has some sort of fatigue management program in place would allow a crew member to safely conduct these flights. But there's all sorts of stuff you have to think about. time of day, rest before, you know, multiple days before the flight, rest after the flight. There's a lot of nuance to this. And my point is, okay, if there's a way to do this safely, safety is not proprietary. This should not be private information. And if NetJets has figured out how to keep all these people safe while doing this, I think the rest of the industry deserves to know that. The airlines are very clear about not having safety as a a a competitive factor. You know, safety is always shared, safety is always open. I think if there if there ever was going to be an exemption, we better get the information. We better understand everything that they're doing to make sure that it is safe. I I truly hope it doesn't happen because I don't think it's really fair. I think if there's a path, there should be a path for everybody and not just for one and not others. And the ARC did all this research already, so why don't you put all that good research that we did to work and actually implement new rest and duty rules that are safe and also effective.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I think that's the sound clip is should not be proprietary. That safety should be a collaborative effort and up with solutions because ⁓ then NetJet has the moat and now FlexJet and VistaJet, because really, I mean, you've got other 135 operators who operate 7,500s, but let's be honest, like those right now are the big ones. If you all of sudden are the only ones who can perform that flight under part 135. ⁓

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: then you get all the demand. That's not the spirit of, it's capitalism, but it's almost too far of capitalism where it's like safety should not be a capitalism versus non-capitalism question, in my opinion.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Right, right. Aviation Safe Private Aviation Safety Alliance has already submitted comments to the FAA. If you have an opinion on this, you should also submit it. ⁓ it's July 2nd as the deadline, so go ahead and put your opinions and observations out there. strongly recommend everyone read that report because there's some really good lessons in there. I mean, we spent so many hours with, you know, PhDs. ⁓ in fatigue and management. And there's so many good things that I think we could be doing as an industry that would A make us safer and also allow for more flexibility in scheduling crew members. But if the FAA doesn't allow everybody to do that, I just don't think that that's really fair. but it's it's an interesting report if you feel like reading it and going to for five hours. ⁓

Preston Holland: Yeah, I read Jessie's comments and I got the gist. So I would suggest just reading Jessie's comments and you'll get the gist. speaking of safety, it reminds me of our lead sponsor this week, AB Jets, who has a culture committed to safety in collaboration with the rest of the industry.

Jessie: Yeah. And I think this was something too that I you know, we've I talked to them at length with. You know, it's we the rules are there. Let's all follow them. And I think AB Jets is one of the really good companies out there that follows it to the letter and above the letter of the law. So kudos to them for doing that. Thanks for being our sponsor of the show and keep being great. And ⁓ I think Kenny said last week, if you focus on safety and quality, the business will come.

Preston Holland: Yep, exactly. moving on to our next story. This is news that's not real news, right? So, Cirrus has, ⁓ Cirrus Aviation been banned from getting government because they are Chinese ⁓ owned and you can flow it to the Chinese Communist Party. So now they can't get any defense contracts. And frankly, this is not news.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha

Preston Holland: Cirrus has been owned by a Chinese company since 2011.

Jessie: Yeah. The designation is new. I will say there were some really small contracts they had in 2011. had some contracts to do like trainer aircraft for around like six million dollars. But yeah, Cirrus is not a defense contractor and doesn't really focus on that industry, ⁓ it is a new designation and it's coming amongst other designations where the United States is kind of saying, All right, we don't really want you like in our aviation business and being a lot more restrictive on that.

Preston Holland: piece that kind of came up when I was doing my research is that this has been a little bit of a compounding thing for Cirrus. In the state of Utah, they tried to purchase a piece of land and the same argument was made against them being able to buy the land to do either training facility or MRO or something like that. And so they were not allowed to do that because of their Chinese ownership. Frankly, Cirrus employees... A lot of US citizens, they're manufactured in Duluth, Minnesota. They're delivered in Knoxville, Tennessee. Everybody I know that works at Cirrus is an American citizen. you know, so it's a big company. They're the largest producer. It is the most delivered private jet, I think, ever, if not ever, like they're pretty far up there. At least per year, they deliver a ton of aircraft per year. The SR-22, you know, 15,000 or 18,000 of them. or SR2022 platform. There's a bunch of them out there. A lot of people in the United States that own them. I think really the thread here is more that general aviation companies have a really hard time staying either afloat or American owned, right? Like Cessna's owned by a Textron. got Mooney that's ⁓ bankrupt a couple of times. You've got other general aviation. ⁓ companies that have kind of changed hands or struggled at given times. it's more of story of maybe there's not enough investor capital for general aviation in the United States, but like the Cirrus owner is really rich. Like why don't the owners of aircraft pool their money together and buy Cirrus? Like that'd be a great idea.

Jessie: Well, I mean, to be fair, this may happen. So recently as well, the Continental Airspace Technologies Firm, ⁓ which is, you know, one of those old piston jet or piston engine manufacturers, they were also controlled by AVIC, who also owns Cirrus. that was just recently, that just recently changed hands to our client investment management for a $535 million deal. bringing it back into US control. If I had to guess, maybe at some point that would also happen with Cirrus. But again, because they're not dependent on defense contracts, maybe it doesn't matter at all. I I tend to agree with you. I don't think that we should necessarily be punishing foreign investors for investing in aviation businesses, especially those which may not attract, you know, typical capital. but peop, you know, we like people to invest in the US. Let's let's keep that going and keep the jobs here. And not manufacturing planes in China. You know, if they're making ⁓ here, mm, I don't I don't see a problem with it.

Preston Holland: Yeah, or maybe... American capital should be a little bit more patient when investing in America and seeing that Cirrus has built a great company. mean, their leadership is fantastic. Their experience is fantastic. It's, you know, is the to own if you own your own business for, you know, I'd say a lot of the population, the one that everybody's dreaming of. So maybe there's maybe if there's a private equity person listening to this podcast, because we do have a fair amount of listeners in

Jessie: Yeah.

Preston Holland: private equity. Make a bid at Cirrus It would be a great play and you would be an American hero.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. There you go. and ⁓ you know, you don't need to be an AI and tech all the time. so ⁓ come over to the aviation waters. We're we're a little bit of a challenge sometimes, but it's worth it.

Preston Holland: Yeah, exactly. a bit persnickety and it takes a long time and it costs a lot of money, but you can do it. We believe in you. So private equity, come in, keep working in our space. Well, on to the next story, there has been some resolution in what I think is Doug Gollans number one number two criminal ⁓ of people that he loves to go after, which is this Patton Britton Harr guy from Aero Vanti ⁓ They finally, from Maryland, yeah, so they have finally...

Jessie: Ha ha ha From Maryland. Yeah.

Preston Holland: was found guilty of wire fraud. Basically, he was selling fractional, but not really, kind of. Like you pay 150 grand and then once everybody sends him all the money, he's gonna buy all these planes and then you get access at like below direct operating costs. And instead of doing all that, he spent it on yachts and a $10,000 a month house in Tampa and sponsors, sponsorships that he never paid for, by the way. and a bunch of other crazy stuff. So he has been found guilty and he has another lawsuit coming up in October for his Medicare fraud stuff from during COVID, which was before he got an airplane.

Jessie: Yeah, so he's already been convicted on all six counts. Each f punishable by twenty years per count. So he could on paper spend up to a hundred and twenty years in jail. I don't know if he'll be sentenced to that long, but I ⁓ I was kind of amazed ⁓

Preston Holland: Listen, longevity drugs have come a long way, Jessie. He could. You never know.

Jessie: Yeah, like how how how well will he behave? Sixty years? yeah, wow. And you know, the thing that like almost bothers me more about this story is how many people could give him that much money. But I guess it's like the Bernie Madoff scheme. Like there's just like some people have this ability to convince people through charisma or whatever it is to just hand over large sums of money. hoping that one day they'll deliver what they say they're going to with basically no evidence of that. so good on the government for for locking this one down. I've I've seen them go after a lot of people lately successfully. So, you know, maybe some of this will continue in our industry for the bad players out there.

Preston Holland: think that the big thing is that it's like, it's $150,000, which in private jet world is not that much money. So if you can get 100 people to give you 150 grand, the threshold of like sniff test and like, this person legit quite, you know, a little bit lower. So pretty crazy. ⁓

Jessie: Yeah. Crazy.

Preston Holland: It is time to ring the M&A gong for everybody's favorite TikTok private jet broker, Steve Varsano has sold the jet business to Kenn Ricci at FlexJet directional capital. So congratulations to Steve. That is very exciting. And congratulations to Kenn Ricci on inheriting two and a half million TikTok Good for you.

Jessie: Yeah. think this is a classic example of acqui- hire. It's an acquisition where you just got the person that you wanted. I I don't know how much these businesses are worth. I mean, Preston's a lot more in this world than I am, but when you're buying and selling airplanes, it's really the relationships ⁓ of that single person, not necessarily like the whole business itself. But I'm sure Steve has a lot of great relationships ⁓ that he's built over many years. And he's gonna be the president of FlexJet now too, which I thought was interesting. He's not just gonna be, you know, buying and selling airplanes, but really responsible for a lot of the strategy of the company moving forward.

Preston Holland: Yeah, I think that it is very interesting that Steve. FlexJet Directional Capital does have an aircraft brokerage. ⁓ Solutions is an aircraft brokerage. So it's not like this is a new vertical for them. It's not like, we didn't have sales and acquisitions, so we brought it in. know, Steve had, if you go look at kind of the public comps, he had probably seven sales last year him selling. You really measure in this business how many acquisitions you do.

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Preston Holland: ⁓ because there's just no real record of it. So given the benefit of the doubt, maybe he did 15 acquisitions and seven sales, know, 22 deals. It's solid business. Makes him a very solid aircraft broker, you know, super scale by any means. mean, once you cross a hundred transactions as a firm, now you're starting to get into a scale player. And so I...

Jessie: What kind of acquisitions? Were they like big planes, small planes?

Preston Holland: Uh, like, Legacy, uh, he had like a Legacy 600, he did a ACJ 319, a bunch of other random stuff, you know, a lot of European, because he lived in London. Um, but he was, he's always been a well-known figure in the United States. He's on the board of Embry Riddle. Uh, he is a living legend of aviation, along with Kenn Ricci, so they run in similar, similar circles.

Jessie: Hmm. Mm-hmm. But also wasn't Kenn Ricci the chair of the Living Legends of Aviation that year as well. ⁓

Preston Holland: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all friendly. It's keep it in the family. So, but yeah, so I think it's exciting. The reality is that, you know, Steve's not a young chicken. I mean, turning 70 this year. And when you get to that point in your business and in your career, you're probably thinking about what's next. And so pretty logical next step for him and his company. He's got a couple of people to work for him. He's got the beautiful showroom in London. So exciting for Steve, we're excited for you, excited for Kenn. and the Directional Capital family. you haven't watched the Kenn episode on dispute versus you should go back and listen to that in the archives. It's a great episode. But the reality Steve a great marketer and he's really good on TikTok and he's great on camera. mean, shoot, the guy does not look 70. I'll tell you that.

Jessie: No, no, he he looks like he's doing really well and is enjoying his life. I have to wonder, like, so does this mean that like Colin's gonna get a job at like like a C C level job somewhere else? Like if this if this is the next like resume builder as being like a TikTok star although I he had a legitimate business other than just the TikTok thing. And actually out of all the influencers I have to say like Steve I respect the most. He was all like the most real, you know, of of all. So

Preston Holland: That's a good question. ⁓ yeah, for sure. Well, he's like, he's legit. His phone calls are legit. Well, his phone calls are probably dramatizations, dramatized ⁓ of real calls. And so for that, you know, we respect you. ⁓ Speaking of great marketers, one of our new sponsors, they just came on last week is RealJet and they are probably one of the best

Jessie: Mm-hmm. Dramatized. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ Mm.

Preston Holland: groups of people that have ever done marketing ever.

Jessie: Yeah, so Kenny is back ⁓ with his team, Robert Withers and others. They're building real SLX and real jets, trying to really bring back, you know, being a really good, honest broker in the industry, taking care of the customers and working with really good operators. So ⁓ thank you guys for sponsoring us. We are so excited to have you on board.

Preston Holland: Yeah, exactly. Well, that has brought us to the end of yet another awesome episode of the VIP Seat podcast. You know what time it is. It is time for me to ask you of the one thing. I need you to do one thing. I need you to share this with a friend in the industry, whether they're in charter, aircraft safety, manufacturing, OEMs. I need you to share it with one person because that's how we grow the show. Podcasts are really, really hard to grow. Don't know if you knew that. but they're really hard to grow. Cause the only way that you can do it is by having audience people like you share it with a friend. Remember Kenny last week said that he listens to the show every week on the drive, just like listening to the radio in the old days, long time listener, first time caller. So we need you to do that. Leave us a five star review on Apple, Spotify, a thumbs up on YouTube. Give us a like on LinkedIn, all the places that you know to share stuff and content. Thanks to AB Jets and Real Jet for sponsoring this week's episode of the podcast for Jessie Neor, who is my awesome co-host. I'm Preston Holland and we will see you all next week.