AIN Media Group Makes First Acquisition Amid ‘Growth Mode’

AIN Media Group made its first acquisition with the purchase of business jet valuation company AircraftPost for an undisclosed sum as it adds a data division to the business.

The Midland Park, NJ-based publisher is bringing the provider of‬ insight, analysis and statistics pertaining to business jets and their market‬‭ values is part of a new expansion plan led by Ruben Kempeneer, who joined family-owned AIN as president from Cirium, a data and analytics company, two years ago. At the time, nearly 100% of revenue came from print and digital advertising. 

As soon as he started, Kempeneer launched an events division, which already represents 25% of revenue. The ultimate goal is for revenue to come equally from publishing, events and data. With this acquisition, subscriptions will now account for 10% of total revenue. 

AircraftPost provides owners and prospective buyers of aircraft with pricing data and trends for planes. In addition, it provides in-depth information to help inform potential purchases and sales. 

AIN, whose specialty is business jet market coverage, is in definite growth mode, and as a privately-held company, not under pressure to move too quickly or take on any debt. It will look to build on its expertise and eventually, maybe, enter adjacent markets. Kempeneer said that while they’re always talking to others, there are no additional concrete purchases in the works, yet.

“AIN brings that independent, authoritative stamp of approval, and so we’ll look to reinforce that position, and see whether there are other use cases for that data in adjacent sectors of business aviation that we can start doubling down on,” Kempeneer told AMO. “We’re very focused on our mission, which is effectively to be the first word and last word in business aviation… We’re going to get to a certain scale where we’ll make a play in other parts of aviation.”

AIN hopes its laser-focus on business aviation for the past 53 years can make it the market leader, including with a big new focus on data—indeed, Kempeneer brings years of experience in data and analytics to the job. But the family-owned company has big competition with the likes of Informa, Firecrown and Skift, among others, competing in aviation data, news, analytics and events. 

Aircraft Post brings 150 new customers, all representing recurring annual subscription revenue. That’s in addition to AIN’s 25,000 monthly print magazine subscribers, and 10,000 that read the same publication digitally. The print magazine is profitable and readers love it, so there’s no plan for that to go anywhere. 

The daily email newsletter is sent to 38,000. “We don’t chase growth, we chase engagement,” Kempeneer said. It’s free but the company wants to see strong open rates—they’re currently at 25%.