REACH Air Medical Services, part of the nation’s largest air medical transport network and Bain Capital-backed AirMedCare, is acquiring Oregon-based Emergency Airlift, giving the Northern California company broader, ahem, reach, into the Pacific Northwest.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition will enable REACH to expand into the Bend region in central Oregon, as well as the coastal areas of Coos Bay and Klammath Falls. It also adds to the growing web of air medical companies that are now all under the ownership of Texas-based Air Medical Holdings, which owns the AirMedCare network.
In 2010, Bain Capital acquired Air Medical from Brockway Moran & Partners and MVP Capital Partners for roughly $1 billion. All told, AirMedCare has about 1.4 million members.
REACH, short for Redwood Empire Air Care Helicopter, has headquarters in Santa Rosa, Calif., about an hour north of San Francisco, and through several acquisitions now serves a wide swath of California and Oregon. In 2011, REACH acquired another Oregon-based company, Cal-Ore Life Flight, for an undisclosed sum.
A year later, REACH itself was acquired for $250 million by Air Medical Holdings, which then operated a fleet through three subsidiaries of more than 200 helicopters and airplanes from 180 bases across 27 states. At the time of that deal, REACH operated a fleet of 17 helicopters and three planes across 12 bases in Northern California, Oregon and Texas.
A third Oregon-based company, AirLink CCT, became part of Air Medical Holdings subsidiary Med-Trans in 2012.
