In 1929, Whitehall Securities became a financial investor of Airwork Services, a British private aviation conglomerate established by Nigel Norman and Alan Muntz the year before.
By that time, Whitehall Securities had acquired shareholdings in a number of Britain's leading pre-World War II private airlines.
[2] Whitehall Securities was joined as investor in the merged airline by the French banking company Emile Erlanger & Co. through Chairman, Leo d'Erlanger.
This played an important role in World War II, but the post-war nationalisation of independent airlines saw it merged into British European Airways in 1947.
(This preceded BUA's official formation on 1 July of that year, when Airwork merged with Hunting-Clan Air Transport.