More deals, more evidence M&A is bouncing back

AE Industrial Partners has yet more deal news to offer regarding one of the private equity firm’s portfolio companies, while another investment group is entering the federal market for the first time.

AEI-backed Belcan said Monday it has acquired Telesis Corp. in an effort to gain more of a footprint in IT modernization and solutions for federal agencies. Terms of the deal were undisclosed, while this is Belcan’s 15th acquisition since the company was purchased by AEI in 2015.

McLean, Virginia-based Telesis’ services to federal agencies cover areas such as cybersecurity, C4ISR and mission systems, cloud computing and managed technology programs. That company was founded in 1998 and its contract vehicle portfolio includes the Army’s RS3 for knowledge-based support and IT Enterprise Solutions-3 Services for enterprise-level work.

The deal also comes more than a year since Belcan had its own portfolio reorganization that saw Schafer Corp. transfer to another AEI-backed company in Gryphon Technologies. Belcan kept the business it had previously acquired through Intercom Consulting & Federal Systems Corp. and The Kemtah Group.

The past week has seen AEI announce one new government IT services investment in PCI and the latest acquisition by portfolio firm Redwire, a space technology outfit unveiled over the summer.

AEI has been one of the most active private equity acquirers as the deal landscape began to recover along with the financing markets in the wake of COVID-19, with some transactions also having picked up where they left off before the pandemic began.

Also announced Monday: fellow private equity firm OpenGate Capital’s first acquisition of a company in the government IT market.

That company is Aurotech, a digital services provider founded in 2007 whose customers include federal health care and civilian agencies.

Silver Spring, Maryland-based Aurotech touts its five addressable market segments as digital strategy and transformation, cloud computing, application modernization, data science and engineering, and cybersecurity.

Founder and CEO Hetal Patel will continue along with the other senior management team members. Aurotech will also pursue further add-on acquisitions with the backing of OpenGate.

G Squared Capital Partners acted as the financial adviser to Telesis and Aurotech for those deals.

Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal adviser to Belcan with PwC as the financial adviser, while Morrison & Foerster LLP served as legal adviser to Telesis.