Competitor to Buy Santa Ana’s Elsinore

Elsinore LP, a Santa Ana-based aviation firm that has cleaned and fueled commercial aircraft for more than 30 years, said on Monday it has agreed to be acquired by a larger competitor, Florida-based Aircraft Service International Group.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The unit is one of the last remaining pieces of the aviation empire once overseen by Newport Beach developer William Lyon.

No layoffs are planned at Elsinore, which has 600 employees in 10 states and the Caribbean, said Richard Sherman, a lawyer representing the company. Elsinore’s main office, which employs about 10 people, will remain at John Wayne Airport.

“I think it was an advantageous time to sell,” Sherman said, “and it was an advantageous price.”

Elsinore’s operations will assume the new parent’s trade name, ASIG, after a transition period. Aircraft Service, which is based in Fort Lauderdale, employs more than 3,900 people in 56 cities.

Elsinore and Martin Aviation are units of Air/Lyon Inc., which is controlled by William Lyon.

A substantial portion of Martin Aviation’s John Wayne Airport facilities were sold to an affiliate of American Airlines in October 1996.

In that deal, Dallas-based AMR COMBS bought Martin’s headquarters and executive aviation hangar complex, charter business and other services that provide fuel for aircraft at John Wayne.

At the time, Lyon retained the aircraft maintenance business and some hangar storage space at John Wayne.

Patrick Kenna, president of the Elsinore and Martin Aviation units, will remain with Martin Aviation rather than join the acquiring firm, Sherman said.

Elsinore’s chief financial officer, Shirley O’Connor, has been offered a position in Florida but has not decided whether to accept it, Sherman said. O’Connor declined to comment.