January 22, 2019, Newport Beach, CA – JW Hill Capital announced today its partnership with digEcor, based in Brisbane, Australia, in the acquisition of the commercial In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) business from Collins Aerospace. That business originated with Rockwell Collins, which was acquired by United Technologies in 2018.
This acquisition brings together 40 years of experience and innovation in IFE—starting with Hughes Avicom and Sony Transcom, then Rockwell Collins and digEcor—into a new global business named
Burrana’s product breadth will include Rockwell Collins’ PAVES™ family of seat back and overhead solutions, PAVES™ On-demand, Total Entertainment System (TES), Enhanced Total Entertainment System (ETES) and content services, as well as digEcor’s GLIDE, Engage, Power, PSS and Lighting products. The combined business will offer best-of-breed solutions for airlines seeking to deliver an extraordinary passenger experience.
David Withers, Burrana’s CEO, said, “Burrana’s global employee base will deliver innovative cabin technologies reliably and affordably to the market, serving an installed base of more than 1,400 planes and 300 customers, positioning us as the #3 player in the IFE market – and we are not stopping there. We will achieve our vision of taking the passenger experience to the next level by collectively bringing the right new technology to market and leveraging our engineering expertise and proven ability to rapidly develop and certify new products. We pride ourselves on listening to our customers, understanding their vision and requirements and developing new solutions to deliver on these needs.”
“We are pleased to partner with JW Hill Capital as we embark on this new journey,” stated Withers. “Their deep industry experience and track record of successfully managing business transitions will be invaluable to us as we move forward.”
“We welcome the opportunity to partner with Mr. Withers and the entire Burrana team to build an innovative market leader, said John Hill, Managing Partner, JW Hill Capital.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.