HEICO, the Family Parts Empire Flying on Almost Everything

HEICO Corporation turned spare parts into one of the best-performing stocks in American aerospace, growing from a $25 million company in 1990 into a roughly $3.9 billion revenue group whose components fly on airliners, fighters, missiles and satellites. The Florida firm is two businesses in one: the world’s largest independent maker of FAA-approved replacement jet parts, and a quietly formidable defense electronics house.

1957

Founded; Mendelson family at the helm since 1990

~$3.9B

Revenue in fiscal 2024, roughly

~100

Acquisitions folded in over three decades, approximately

2

Segments, Flight Support and Electronic Technologies

HEICO at a glance

Company fact sheet

Item	Detail
Full name	HEICO Corporation
Headquarters	Hollywood, Florida, United States
Founded	1957, as Heinicke Instruments; renamed HEICO and refocused on aerospace
Listing	NYSE, tickers HEI and HEI.A
Revenue	Roughly $3.9 billion in fiscal 2024
Leadership	Mendelson family; Eric and Victor Mendelson as co-CEOs since 2025
Segments	Flight Support Group; Electronic Technologies Group
Employees	Roughly 10,000 worldwide, reported

Figures rounded from public disclosures for the fiscal year ending October 2024.

Who owns HEICO

HEICO is publicly traded but family-run. Laurans Mendelson, an accountant turned investor, took control with his sons in 1990 when the company was a small lab-equipment and parts maker, and the family has led it since, with sons Eric and Victor running the two segments for decades before taking over as co-CEOs. Employees hold a meaningful equity stake, a culture point the company advertises, and the dual share classes help keep control stable.

The stewardship record is the story: HEICO stock compounded at rates that embarrassed most of the defense industry, driven not by a hot product but by disciplined niche acquisitions and aftermarket economics.

What does HEICO make

Business segments and product lines

Segment	What it sells	Typical customers
Flight Support Group	FAA-approved PMA replacement parts, component repair and overhaul, specialty distribution	Airlines, MRO shops, cargo operators, militaries
Electronic Technologies Group	Radiation-hardened microelectronics, power supplies, RF and microwave components, EMI filtering, simulators and test equipment	Defense primes, space programs, medical and industrial OEMs

Both segments are umbrellas over dozens of subsidiary companies that keep their own names and management.

Unlike a prime contractor, HEICO rarely appears on a program’s nameplate. Its parts ride inside platforms built by others, the same position occupied by peers like Curtiss-Wright and Mercury Systems, and its components support engines from manufacturers such as Safran and others across the commercial fleet.

HEICO PMA parts business explained

The Flight Support Group’s core is PMA, Parts Manufacturer Approval: the FAA process that lets an independent firm reverse-engineer, certify and sell a replacement part originally designed by an engine or airframe OEM. HEICO is the largest independent player in this market, offering airlines parts at meaningful discounts to OEM list prices. The model demands deep engineering to prove equivalence, and it earns loyalty from cost-squeezed operators, effectively making HEICO the generic-drug company of jet hardware.

The 2023 acquisition of Wencor, a fellow PMA and distribution house bought for roughly $2 billion, was HEICO’s largest deal ever and consolidated its lead in the aftermarket.

HEICO defense and space electronics

The Electronic Technologies Group is the defense-facing half, built from dozens of specialist firms: radiation-tolerant electronics for satellites, microwave components, ruggedized power conversion, EMI filters and connectors, and simulation and test gear. A large share of ETG revenue traces to defense and space programs, where its content rides on missiles, aircraft and spacecraft across US and allied inventories. Acquisitions such as France’s Exxelia broadened the passive-components portfolio, and demand from missile production ramps and satellite constellations has kept the segment’s margins the envy of the sector.

HEICO financials and acquisition model

HEICO closed fiscal 2024 with roughly $3.9 billion in revenue and net income around the half-billion mark, both records. The machine behind the numbers is an acquisition playbook refined over roughly a hundred deals: buy founder-led niche businesses, usually keeping 80-90 percent and leaving management with equity, avoid auctions, never bet the company on one transaction, and let subsidiaries run decentralized. It is the same compounding logic that built TransDigm, but executed with lower leverage and a gentler pricing reputation.

Editor’s read

HEICO’s moat is regulatory and reputational at once: PMA certification takes years of engineering credibility with the FAA, and defense electronics niches are too small to attract giants but too critical to abandon. The watch items are succession beyond the second Mendelson generation and the OEMs’ counterattack on the aftermarket, engine makers increasingly lock operators into long-term service agreements that shut PMA parts out. So far, cost pressure on airlines has kept the door open.