The Avincis company currently operates helicopter emergency services in Italy (ambulance, firefighting, Search and rescue) previously managed by Babcock Mission Critical Services Italy. A passage that also took place in Spain, Portugal, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Given that the sale by the British group Babcock International is part of a program to reduce its debt and that Avincis operates State-owned aircraft, Norway has asked a team of lawyers to evaluate this transition. In Italy we don't even talk about it.

The question posed by Oslo is simple: who is behind Avincis? The latter is a subsidiary of the Ancala Partners Group, a financial fund manager based in Luxembourg and the United Kingdom. However, the true owner of Avincis is unknown. The Scandinavian media have tried to figure it out, but Ancala Partners has never specified which fund is the real manager of the emergency helicopter services.

Italy too should demand greater clarity, considering that in Italy the Avincis company manages State-owned aircraft, such as the Canadair aircraft of the Fire Brigade and the 118 medical aid helicopters. It is a right of taxpayers who pay for this public service. Public yes, but managed by private funds that control Avincis.

Where does our money go?

We only know that in March 2023 Ancala Partners purchased for 136.2 million euros the air and helicopter emergency services from Babcock International. Until that time it was part of its subsidiary Babcock Mission Critical Services, which already operated through Avincis.

It looks like a matryoshka. And Oslo wants to clarify this operation and understand who is the real owner of Avincis. Thus the Norwegian Health Minister, Ingvild Kjerkol, entrusted the Bahr law firm with evaluating the financial operation and establishing whether the standard of efficiency of the public helicopter service is at risk. Oslo's questions are these, and they are important matters: does the financial transition guarantee the best air ambulance service possible throughout the country? Who are the new leaders? Do the current owners have any ties to Russia? Are the working conditions in the company ethical?

Let's then open the matryoshka to reconstruct the main corporate passages. The Investindustrial fund acquires the helicopter companies Inaer, later Australian helicopter and Norsk Helikopterservice. Following the first award of the Canadair contract in the period 2011-2012, Investindustrial creates the holding company Avincis, a company that deals with air and helicopter rescue services, which then also sees the entry into the capital of the US fund KKR (with the Italian Elilario, Elidolomiti and Helitalia, the British Bond). Then in March 2014 Avincis was renamed Babcock Mission Critical Services, after being sold to Babcock International for around 2.2 billion pounds. Finally, the latter in March 2023 sells the emergency services division, as announced in 2021 to repay its debt (equal to approximately 1.2 billion dollars). Babcock Mission Critical Services is thus acquired by the Ancala Partners fund, which renames it Avincis (as confirmed by the UK's Companies House institution website, albeit with reservations, as specified on the same web portal).

Let's take a look at the capital of the Ancala Partners Group to understand more. This is 31% held by private pension funds; 25% belong to public pension funds; 16% to insurance companies. From a geographical point of view, 53% of the capital is held by subjects based in countries of the EMEA quadrant (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), among which there could also be Russian subjects (something Oslo wants to be clear about), while the 35% are based in Asia-Pacific (and here we would like to understand if, and how much, European know-how China is taking).

That said, some industry analysts are wondering: could Babcock still be behind Avincis and Ancala Partner? And if not, who is there? We would like to ask this question to the new Avincis management. Also because private companies operating in the public sector are required to guarantee transparency. But in this operation, at the moment, there seems to be very little transparency...