Ex-Owner Regains Security Aviation with Top Bid

Apr. 25 -- The bidding at Tuesday's bankruptcy auction started at a cool $3,050,000.

On the block: Security Aviation Inc., a long-time Anchorage air charter business that underwent an odd and now familiar metamorphosis after Anchorage attorney Mark Avery bought it in July 2005.

Avery pleaded guilty just last month to 15 felony counts related to a scheme in which he defrauded a rich widow's trust fund of more than $52 million, money he used to buy Security and start or acquire a string of related companies.

With Avery's business empire unraveled, Security ended up in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

On one side of the old courtroom Tuesday was Joe Kapper, the stepson of Security's late founder who has been running the business since bankruptcy trustees took it over He wanted to buy Security back and rebuild its good reputation.

On the other side were the opening bidders, partners Daniel Owen and Randy Dewar of Anchorage. Owen says he has been in the aviation business since the early 1980s.

A third potential bidder, Seacor Holdings Inc., dropped out of the game. The company, which owns Era Helicopters, found out about Security being for sale too late to thoroughly check it out, its lawyer, Michael Mills, said in court.

So it would be Kapper against Owen and Dewar. Each side put up $200,000 for a seat at the table. Kapper wrote his check on the spot.

A lot was on the line. Security Aviation still has 42 employees. Some came to the auction, hoping their old boss Kapper would win the day. He had to raise the opening bid by at least $50,000.

He didn't mess around.

"We bid $3.3 (million)," his lawyer, Erik LeRoy, said.

Owen and Dewar huddled with their lawyer, Charles Kasmar.

No one in the audience spoke.

"We bid $3,350,000," Kasmar said.

Kapper and LeRoy whispered, then headed into the hallway.

Minutes later, they reappeared and upped the bid to $3.4 million.

Now it was all on Owen and Dewar. They'd have to go to $3.45 million. They had a hallway chat too.

And then it was done. Owen and Dewar bowed out, congratulating Kapper.

Kapper winked at his employees.

After the hearing, Kapper said he wouldn't have gone any higher. "We were done," he said.

Kapper sold the airline for $8 million to Avery in July 2005, back before Avery's troubles. He had earlier offered to buy it back for $3 million. Avery overpaid, the bankruptcy trustee has said. Then he damaged the company, making it less valuable, according to Kapper.

The auction was a gamble for bankruptcy trustee Bill Barstow, who is responsible for getting as much as possible out of the bankruptcy sale so Avery's creditors can be paid. Kapper suggested earlier that he wouldn't participate in an auction.

"We all feel very good about it," Kapper said after winning Tuesday.

So will he hang onto the name Security Aviation after all the company has been through in the last 14 months?

"You bet we are," Kapper said.

Some of the airline's blue chip clients already have returned and others will too, now that it's getting out of bankruptcy, Barstow said.

Under Avery's stewardship, Security and related companies bought a fleet of military fighter jets. The company and a principal were indicted on federal charges of illegally possessing rocket launchers, then found not guilty.

But that's all old news to the crew at Security.

Kapper left the courtroom, down $3.4 million but back in business.

"Thank you, Joe," one of the workers said.

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