Alcatel-Lucent, LGS complete separation with $200M deal

LGS Innovations' separation from Alcatel-Lucent is now complete, and the company can now move forward as an independent firm focused on developing networking and communications solutions for government customers.

The company is now owned by the private equity groups Madison Dearborn Partners and CoVant, which paid $200 million for the company. The company will continue on with the same management team led by CEO Kevin Kelly.

LGS has roots that go back to the legendary Bell Labs under the pre-breakup of AT&T.

With the private equity backing, LGS is expected to become a platform for acquisitions, but the separation from Alcatel-Lucent, a Paris-based company, also frees LGS to pursue more U.S. federal business, because it won’t face certain restrictions based on foreign ownership.

“LGS Innovations has long been at the leading edge of developing and delivering highly innovative products and services to the U.S. federal government, and we are pleased to now be in a position to help the team expand its business,” said Doug Grissom, a managing director at Madison Dearborn and the head of the firm’s business and government services team.

Joe Kampf, CEO of CoVant, said that LGS has unique offerings that include intellectual property and patents in the communications and networking technology.

“Our focus will be to help the company build on this platform and deliver its technology solutions to an expanded array of clients around the world,” Kampf said.

The deal for LGS is all cash with $100 million paid at closing and the rest to be determined by LGS’s results this year.