Exchange Income Corporation has signed a letter of intent to purchase Bearskin Airlines.
The value of the purchase is $32.5 million. It will be completed in the fourth quarter of the year through cash and shares.
“It is a rare combination to find a buyer that has the access to capital that EIC brings yet still enables us to keep our core culture and values that have driven this company to its current level of success,” Bearskin’s former owners Harvey and Cliff Friesen, president and executive vice-president respectively, said in a release.
The Friesen’s will continue their current roles at Bearskin following the sale.
“(Exchange Income Corporation’s) track record with their other aviation companies was a key driver in our decision to sell,” the Friesens said.
Exchange Income is excited by what the future holds.
“The acquisition of the business of Bearskin Airlines will help to accelerate the next phase of our growth and is strategic on a number of levels,” Mike Pyle, president and CEO of Exchange Income, said in a release. “Most notably, it allows our aviation segment to expand its operations into select markets in northwestern Ontario that are generally under-served, including Thunder Bay, Sioux Lookout, Kenora and Dryden.”
When I was a boy growing up in my home community of Attawapiskat on the James Bay coast, I was deathly afraid of looking at the full moon.



When I was a boy growing up in my home community of Attawapiskat on the James Bay coast, I was deathly afraid of looking at the full moon.
I grew up...
I’m happy to see the ongoing support and assistance in our northern remote communities to help our people cope with so many lifelong and generational issues...