Mergers & Acquisitions

McDonald Bradley Inc. of Herndon, Va., acquired the federal business unit of Software Performance Systems Inc., for $15 million.SPS of Falls Church, Va., offers Web-based solutions and service-oriented architecture help to federal, state and local governments.McDonald Bradley will keep 60 SPS employees and 20 consultants for its civilian agency unit.L-1 Identity Solutions Inc. of Stamford, Conn., bought biometric identification and authentication technologies developer ComnetiX Inc. for $12.5 million.ComnetiX of Ontario, Canada, offers fingerprinting services to the Canadian market and uses the services as part of tens of thousands of criminal background checks that it conducts yearly.Northrop Grumman Corp. of Los Angeles has acquired signal processing services provider Essex Corp. for $580 million in an all-cash deal.Essex of Columbia, Md., will become a business unit of Northrop Grumman's mission systems sector.The acquisition will expand Northrop Grumman's position in delivering command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.Science Applications International Corp. will acquire Applied Marine Technology Inc., a provider of services for special military, intelligence and law enforcement operations. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.AMTI, Virginia Beach, Va., offers training and exercises, systems engineering and integration, information systems and communications, and personal protection and explosive ordnance products.