Odyssey in talks with aircraft parts company

Odyssey Investment Partners is in talks to buy Wencor Inc., a Springville, Utah-based company that makes and distributes aircraft parts, according to a regulatory filing.

Wencor makes air turbine systems, air cycle machines, fuel pumps, engines and other parts for aircrafts and has sales and stocking offices in Florida, the Netherlands, Singapore and China.

If the deal is closed, the firm will make the investment out of Odyssey Investment Partners Fund IV, a $1.5 billion vehicle Odyssey raised in 2009, according to the filing.

The company appears to be a good fit for Odyssey Investment, which targets companies in aerospace services and products, as well as in industrial manufacturing, distribution, safety products and supply chain management, among other sectors. Past investments in the aerospace industry have included SM&A (f.k.a. Emergent Information Technologies Inc.), a Newport Beach, Calif.-based company that helps Boeing, Raytheon and other aviation companies prepare bids for contracts with the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies. In December 2008, Odyssey Investment and Caltius Mezzanine invested nearly $120 million in SM&A, according to Thomson Reuters (publisher of PE Week).

Odyssey Investment has also backed Aviation Technologies Inc., a Seattle-based company in which Odyssey invested in 2003. The company supplies electrical and mechanical aircraft components used in military and civilian aircrafts. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Odyssey Investment typically makes control investments in companies with EBITDA in the range of $20 million to $80 million. On Dec. 14, the firm announced its most recent deal, an agreement to buy One Call Medical Inc., a Parsippany, N.J.-based company that helps the workers’ compensation industry manage diagnostic imaging scheduling and radiology networks, from TA Associates. Terms on that deal were not released.

Founded in 1997, Odyssey Investment manages three funds, including a $760 million pool the firm raised in 1998 and a $750 million fund it raised in 2005.

Attempts to reach co-founder Stephen Berger and executives at Wencor for comment were not returned. —Bernard Vaughan