Sealand Helicopters

"Dobbin soon discovered that the annual maintenance costs of a helicopter roughly equalled its initial purchase price. In effect, it was like purchasing a new helicopter every year he retained the same machine. Confronted with such a drain on their cash flow, most businesspeople would either shrug and absorb it or heed the advice of their accountant and pass the toy along to someone else. Dobbin, in a move mirrored at every stage of his career, did neither. The aircraft, he believed, could be altered from a consumer of cash to a creator of cash by chartering it. Of course, if he were to be serious about the business he needed more than one aircraft; in other words, he would respond to the cost of operating a single helicopter by adding the expense of buying and operating three or four of them. Additional JetRangers were purchased in short order, and in 1977 Sealand Helicopters, 100 per cent owned by Craig Dobbin, was launched."

"Dobbin began working on a deal to acquire Rutledge’s firm, turning to Robert Foster’s Capital Canada for assistance. To Foster, the purchase of Toronto Helicopters by Dobbin’s teetering-near-the-edge Sealand Helicopters made a good deal of sense. “Toronto Helicopters was very profitable, which meant it was paying a lot of taxes,” Foster points out, “and one way you value a company is against its aftertax income which, in this case, reduced its value to the seller.” Meanwhile, Sealand was losing money and recording substantial depreciation costs against its fleet of Super Puma aircraft, enabling Sealand to shelter Toronto’s enormous income free of tax."