Booz Allen heads for Wall Street with IPO

Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. made it official today when it filed documents to go public.

In the filing, the company says part of the proceeds will be used to pay off about $545.2 million in debt that is left from its acquisition by The Carlyle Group, which acquired Booz Allen in 2008.

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The company's IPO could come before the end of the year, according to the filings with the Security and Exchange Commission.

In its fiscal 2010, which ended March 31, Booz Allen had $5.1 billion in revenue and a net income of $25.4 million.

The company has not set the price range for its shares, which it hopes will trade under the BAH ticker, or the total number of shares to be issues. Those details will be the subject of later filings. 

The investment banks Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse Security, Stifel Nicolaus, BB&T Capital Markets, Lazard Capital Markets and Raymond James are involved in the stock offering.

That Booz Allen is going public is not a surprise. The private equity firm The Carlyle Group acquired Booz Allen in 2008 as part of a move to separate the company's government and commercial businesses.

Booz Allen executives, such as chairman and chief executive officer Ralph Shrader, have voiced a desire for Booz Allen to remain independent as a way of preserving its unique culture. An IPO allows The Carlyle Group to recoup its investment and for Booz Allen to remain an independent company.

As a public company, Booz Allen expects to focus on areas in the government market such as cybersecurity, government efficiency and procurement, health care transformation, systems engineering and integration, cloud computing, advanced analytics and financial management, according to the filing.