Baroni to raise Eclat Consulting from BearingPoint's ashes

Greg Baroni's deal to acquire one of the last pieces of his former employer, BearingPoint, is just the beginning for his new venture, Eclat Consulting LLC.

“Stay tuned, we have the platform,” Baroni said, having just secured the remaining $50 million in government contracts and employees from bankrupt BearingPoint.

Late last week, Baroni, who founded Eclat about a year ago to go after the consulting company, secured the last of his wish list, a $7 million credit facility from Access National bank.

Baroni is a former executive at KPMG, which spun off its consulting unit in 1999 to become BearingPoint. Earlier this year the company declared bankruptcy. Baroni also is the former president of Unisys Corp.'s federal business.

Although Deloitte purchased most of BearingPoint’s government contracts, it was forced to leave about $50 million worth of federal work on the table because of potential conflicts of interest.

Baroni formed Eclat in 2008 and tried several times to buy the remaining entity, which provides advisory and management consulting services, IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing.

“We gained assets of about 200 employees and about 100 federal, state and local, and even some educational clients,” Baroni said of the deal.

Eclat is already working on two contracts it inherited from the BearingPoint.

“We have the applications management and outsourcing contract in the county of San Diego. And then on the [business process outsourcing] front we have a large grants management outsourcing contract” with a private institution that works with federal agencies, he said.

As chief executive officer, Baroni worked out a bridge loan from Access National Bank and the $7 million line of credit last week, which enabled his new venture to take over those contracts and the remaining BearingPoint employees.

“We intend to use this [platform] as a springboard, particularly into the federal marketplace,” he said. “So what we have is a presence in two primary accounts, Army and Veterans Administration and we intend to radiate around that.”

Baroni said the company will expand its work with the Army as well as VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration and the Veterans Health Administration. “There are a variety of vehicles as well as contracts that are going to be let in those accounts and we will be looking to win that work,” he said.

In addition, Baroni will be on the lookout for partnerships, joint ventures and even mergers and acquisitions that could help Eclat grow its health care portfolio, using its work with VA as the central core.

For example, he said Eclat will look to expand into the Defense Department’s Tricare health program as well as the Health and Human Services Department.

But he underscored that Eclat will not follow in BearingPoint’s footsteps by trying to do too much; instead, it has adopted a narrow focus on the public sector. “We will not try to be all things to all people,” he said.

And although the world is going global, Baroni promised, “We’re also not going to do international work. A $50 million company trying to do international work, that’s absurd.”