Maximus' deals set the stage for more growth

Maximus has muscled its way up the Top 100 rankings by making at least one blockbuster acquisition nearly every year for the past three. For the 2021 rankings, we have a couple to pick from.

There is the acquisition of Attain’s federal business for $430 million, which added about $200 million in annual revenue. Quickly on the heels of that was the June 1 acquisition of Veterans Evaluation Services Inc. for $1.4 billion, Maximus’ largest-ever acquisition to date. VES should bring in between $480 million and $525 million in annual revenue.

There also is the leadership transition at the head of its federal business with its long-time leader retiring.

Maximus reached No. 25 on the Top 100 this year with $1.6 billion in prime contracts in fiscal year 2020.

Though the retirement of long-time federal leader Tom Romeo doesn’t have a revenue story line, it is no less a milestone for the company given his leadership over the years and the potential road ahead for the new leader.

Maximus CEO Bruce Caswell knows Romeo’s shoes will be a challenge to fill. But Caswell also believes the new federal leader in Terry Weipert has an advantage perhaps given she comes from outside the company.

“Whenever possible we try to promote from within,” Caswell said. “But there’s something to be said about bringing in somebody with a fresh perspective and an external view and Terry Weipert is a great example of that.”

Weipert has over 30 years of government contracting experience and has worked at IBM. She led the delivery of IBM’s health care, life sciences and state, local and education solutions.

She also brings business process outsourcing experience from Sutherland Global Services and has led programs at Unisys and Accenture.

During her first month on the job in April, Romeo continued to run day-to-day operations as she learned more about the business. In May, Romeo stepped back but remains with the company to act as a resource for Weipert and to help with some business development activities.

One early priority will be the integration of the Attain and VES acquisitions. There are a lot of basics to get through such as submitting time cards and using accounting systems, Caswell said.

“There’s also a lot to learn about the biorhythms of the business -- how do you get bids through, what’s the approval process, what’s the levels of authority that individuals have,” he said.

Because of priorities at VES’ primary customers in the Veterans Affairs Department, Caswell said the company will hold off on most back office integration so it can focus on COVID-related work at the VA.

“We’ve got time to really focus on customer delivery and then ultimately on integration,” Caswell said.

Priority two for Weipert will be pulling in Attain’s capabilities through Maximus contract vehicles they now have access to such as Alliant 2, CIO-SP3, and the Internal Revenue Service's Total Information Processing Support Services program.

“A priority will be to deliver on that goal of mid-, single-digit organic growth and I feel like we’ve set the table for that with Attain,” Caswell said.

More growth will come from VES but for the next year it will be focused on helping the VA clear the backlog of benefit assessments that have piled up because of COVID delays.

But even with just Attain, the opportunity is ripe for Weipert.

“In a way I’m envious. I’d love to come into a business like this that is crescendoing on Tom’s excellent contributions over the years,” Caswell said. “At the same time it is poised with a whole new set of skills and capabilities and a great reputation… to me it’s a dream job.”

Attain didn’t have the scale or the past performance on large projects to pursue opportunities that are now open to it as part of Maximus, Caswell said.

“They didn’t have the critical mass or credibility on larger deals,” Caswell said. “We’ll be able to bring more investment to that business and more capabilities.”

One area of investment will be business development. Similar to most smaller professional services firms, BD is done at Maximus by the partners or the senior leaders. They are delivering and selling at the same time.

“But now we've got a BD team that we can align with them in their accounts and give them access to bigger opportunities and the ability to play on a bigger stage,” Caswell said.

Acquiring Attain brought Maximus more capabilities that will drive the digital transformation of their customers such as DevSecOps, artificial intelligence, machine learning, agile development and data science.

“All of that is front and center in terms of government leaders thinking about IT transformation and what the future looks like,” Caswell said. “Those are critical capabilities for the future of their agencies and we couldn’t wait. We needed to be there now.”