Skyridge Aviation — Executive Summary

Skyridge Aviation seeks USD 30.0 million (USD 18.0m equity + USD 12.0m senior debt) to build a premium Southern African private-aviation platform at Lanseria International Airport — scaling revenue from USD 6.5 million to USD 36.4 million by Year 5, operating 15 aircraft while financing only 7, and delivering a 34.7% equity IRR and a 4.44× money multiple.

Section 1 · Business Plan

Executive Summary

Skyridge Aviation (Pty) Ltd is a Southern African
private-aviation platform established to deliver premium executive jet
charter, safari aviation, mining and energy crew transport, aeromedical
evacuation, time-critical cargo and third-party aircraft management
across one of the world’s fastest-growing yet most chronically
under-served air-mobility markets. Headquartered at Lanseria
International Airport in Johannesburg, with operating bases planned at
OR Tambo, Cape Town, Livingstone and Lusaka, Skyridge is positioned to
capture demand along the high-value corridors that link South Africa’s
economic heartland to the resource, tourism and capital centres of
Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of
Congo.

The Company is seeking total funding of USD 30.0
million — comprising USD 18.0 million in
equity and USD 12.0 million in senior aircraft-backed
debt — to certify its Air Operator Certificate, acquire and
finance an initial owned fleet, establish base and maintenance
infrastructure, and fund the working capital required to scale from a
four-aircraft launch operation to a fifteen-aircraft regional platform
over five years.

1.1 The Opportunity

Africa is home to just over 400 business aircraft, of which South
Africa operates approximately 137 — the largest fleet on the continent.
Despite this base, the Middle East and Africa business-jet market
remains structurally under-penetrated relative to its wealth and
resource base, and is forecast to grow from approximately USD 1.42
billion in 2025 to USD 2.31 billion by 2031, a compound annual growth
rate of roughly 8.4%. The charter and air-taxi sub-segment is expanding
even faster, at close to 9.5% per year. South Africa anchors this
growth: it is home to 41,100 US-dollar millionaires — over a third of
Africa’s high-net-worth population — and recorded 10.5 million
international tourist arrivals in 2025, a 17.7% increase year-on-year
and above pre-pandemic levels.

Three structural forces underpin demand: the concentration of private
wealth in Johannesburg and Cape Town; the mining and energy sector’s
persistent need to move crews and executives to remote sites poorly
served by scheduled aviation; and a luxury safari-tourism economy that
increasingly expects seamless air access to lodges and cross-border
destinations. Scheduled carriers have retreated from many secondary
routes, leaving a widening gap that flexible, well-capitalised charter
operators are best placed to fill.

Figure 1.

Figure 1. Middle East & Africa business-aviation market size, 2025–2031 (USD billion).

1.2 Business Model

Skyridge generates revenue across five complementary streams:
owned-fleet executive and charter flying (priced on block hours at a
blended yield); brokered charter margin on flights sub-chartered to
partner operators; aircraft management and crewing fees earned on a
managed (off-balance-sheet) fleet flown on behalf of private owners;
line maintenance and MRO services; and fixed-base-operation (FBO),
handling and ancillary income. A defining feature of the model is the
deliberate separation of the owned/financed fleet —
which sits on the Company’s balance sheet — from the managed
fleet, which generates high-margin fee income without requiring
Skyridge to fund the airframes. This structure allows the Company to
operate fifteen aircraft by Year 5 while financing only seven,
materially reducing the capital intensity of growth.

Metric (USD ‘000 unless noted)	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Year 5
Total fleet (aircraft)	4	6	9	12	15
— of which owned/financed	3	4	5	6	7
— of which managed	1	2	4	6	8
Flight hours	1,100	2,300	3,800	5,400	7,200
Revenue	6,500	12,145	18,600	27,000	36,360
EBITDA	769	2,827	4,890	8,595	12,807
EBITDA margin	11.8%	23.3%	26.3%	31.8%	35.2%
Net profit after tax	(453)	102	1,036	2,951	5,325

Table 1. Headline operating and financial
trajectory, Years 1–5.

Figure 2.

Figure 2. Revenue growth by stream, Years 1–5 (USD ‘000).

1.3 Financial Highlights

On the Company’s base-case projections, revenue grows from
$6.5m in Year 1 to $36.4m in Year 5, a compound annual
growth rate of approximately 53%. EBITDA scales from $0.8m to $12.8m,
with margins expanding from 11.8% to 35.2% as fixed base and overhead
costs are absorbed across a larger fleet and as higher-margin management
and ancillary income grows. The business turns net-profit positive in
Year 2 and generates cumulative free cash flow sufficient to keep the
closing cash balance above $12.5m throughout the plan.

Leverage remains conservative: net debt to EBITDA peaks at
1.37x in Year 3 before falling to 0.76x by Year 5, and
the senior facility amortises steadily from cash flow. On a five-year
hold and an EV/EBITDA exit multiple of 7.0x, the base case delivers a
gross money multiple of 4.44x and an IRR of 34.7% to
equity investors.

Analyst note — conservative re-derivation of
earnings

Skyridge’s projections have been independently re-derived on a
conservative basis: full depreciation and amortisation, full interest at
10.5% on drawn senior debt, and South African corporate tax at 27% (net
of assessed-loss carry-forward) are each applied in full. The resulting
net-profit line sits below the sponsor’s illustrative headline figures —
for example, Year 5 net profit of $5.3m versus the sponsor’s
illustrative $7.9m. This gap reflects prudence, not weakness: it ensures
every projection in this plan is fully burdened and defensible to a
credit committee.

1.4 Investment Rationale

The case for backing Skyridge rests on five pillars:

Structural demand growth. A regional market
compounding at 8–9% per year, anchored by the continent’s deepest pool
of private wealth and a recovering, premium-skewed tourism
economy.
Capital-efficient scaling. The managed-fleet
model adds operating scale and fee income without proportionate
balance-sheet expansion, lifting returns on invested capital.
Diversified, resilient revenue. Five streams
spanning discretionary (charter, safari) and non-discretionary (medevac,
mining crew, management) demand smooth the cyclicality inherent in
luxury travel.
Defensible margins. High-margin management,
brokerage and ancillary income — much of it carrying little or no direct
cost of sales — structurally lifts blended profitability as the mix
matures.
Clear exit. Consolidation among African and Gulf
operators provides a credible trade-sale or strategic-investor exit at
the end of the hold period.

The balance of this plan sets out the market, competitive,
operational, regulatory and financial foundations of the business in
detail, together with a fully costed implementation roadmap and a
complete three-statement financial model.

Confidential — this business plan is provided to prospective investors and lenders for evaluation purposes only and may not be reproduced or distributed without the written consent of Skyridge Aviation (Pty) Ltd.