Federal IT companies see their worth rise

Market valuations for publicly traded government IT companies rose an average of 17 percent over the last six months, according to Input Inc., a Reston, Va.-based IT market research firm. "Compared to an increase of 11 percent in the S&P 500 Index since the end of May, valuation ratio data for the sampling of government IT firms shows a trend of outperforming the market in general," said David Heinemann, head of strategic advisory services at Input. He attributed the government IT market's performance in part to adoption of new technologies. "Complex integrations, use of photonics and sensors in a variety of applications, and security and simulation applications are all areas of interest for the federal government that will translate to commercial applications over the next few years," Heinemann said.Although the 17 percent rise in valuations was impressive, Heinemann said the IT component of the S&P 500 rose 24 percent during the same period, indicating that valuations in the government IT market were lagging behind the overall IT sector.Input's conclusions were based on analysis of the enterprise value to revenue ratio of 17 public government IT firms. It also looked at the enterprise value to net income ratio of those companies, and found it rose an average of 21 percent since its analysis in May."As the whole IT sector continues to gain momentum, we expect the government-focused IT firms to move ahead in value as well," Heinemann said.Staff Writer Brad Grimes can be reached at bgtrimes@postnewsweektech.com.