Miamians like A-Rod invested early and now will make bank as jet firm goes public
The early bird gets many things — including an occasional financial windfall.
On Monday, private jet group Wheels Up anMiami nounced it was going public — something that will net a select group of Florida residents serious wealth after they made early investments in the charter plane ride-sharing platform.
Among the earliest investors in Wheels Up, the Herald reported in 2015, were baseball legends-turned-investors Alex Rodriguez and Mike Piazza, now both Miami Beach residents; Miamibased investing group Krillion Ventures; transportation executive Thomas
Oakley of Polk County; and former Chico’s CEO Scott Edmonds, most recently of Fort Myers.
Specific investment amounts were not disclosed. But it probably wasn’t close to the $2.1 billion that Wheels Up now estimates it is worth.
“I am very proud to be a part of the Wheels Up family,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “I had no doubt that [CEO] Kenny Dichter was a visionary, and this transaction is just the latest step in the remarkable development of a great company. What Uber did to ride-sharing on the road, Wheels Up is doing in the sky.”
Krillion Ventures cofounder Melissa Krinzman had a similar response in a statement. “Kenny Dichter and his team are innovators within the private aviation industry. They redefined the way that private aviation is consumed and have significantly grown the category.” Krinzman’s co-founder at Krillion is Jeffrey Miller, whose father cofounded Miami-based home builder Lennar.
Wheels Up is slated to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker UP this year. Existing shareholders of Wheels Up will roll 100% of their equity into the new share class.
The company’s goal is to “democratize” private travel by allowing users to book short- and medium-range private charter flights at hourly rates through its app. Unlike NetJets, which allows for fractional ownership of private jets, Wheels
Up members pay an annual fee and then buy virtual tickets at their convenience, schedules permitting.
“We believe this will allow us to actualize our founding goal of democratizing private aviation, through our unique membership model, suite of products and benefits, and by bringing the shared economy to private aviation through our Wheels Up app,” said Dichter in a statement. He co-founded the company along with Miami-based Wheels Up executive Justin Firestone in 2013.
New York-based Wheels Up has a substantial presence in Miami-Dade County, including a brick-andmortar store in Coral Gables and thousands of customers with South Florida connections.
The public listing is occurring as Wheels Up is acquired by Aspirational Consumer Lifestyle Corp. Aspirational is a specialpurpose acquisition company (SPAC), or “blank check” company; these corporations are formed by investors for the purpose of acquiring businesses to take them public. Aspirational also has a Miami connection: It is partly owned by L Catterton, a private equity firm that is a major investor in the Miami Design District.
The deal, expected to close in the second quarter of 2021, would immediately net Wheels Up $791 million in cash.