DataStream

AverStar Inc. of Burlington, Mass., hopes to sell 4 million shares of common stock at a price of $7 to $9 a share, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Company officials said the initial public offering could come as early as Aug. 9, after a road show with institutional investors. Underwriters are Bear, Stearns & Co. of New York and Legg Mason Inc. of Baltimore.

The supplier of information systems assurance and systems life-cycle services, as well as software development, signaled its intent to come to market in May.

AverStar, which had about $169 million in revenue in 1998, will use proceeds from the offering to pay down debt and continue its acquisition spree.
Andersen Consulting has lured Elizabeth Arky from a U.S. trade post to head its new global government relations group.

Arky, an attorney, will join the firm in September from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, where she has served as assistant trade representative for congressional affairs.

Arky will oversee the company's new government affairs offices in Washington, which will focus on electronic commerce, taxation and labor issues. Plans call for additional offices to be established in Brussels and Tokyo.

The $8.3 billion global management and technology company, based in Chicago, said it is creating the government relations unit "to help shape the policy agenda on important issues affecting the firm and its clients."
Titan Corp. of San Diego continued its acquisition streak by picking up Atlantic Aerospace Electronics Corp., a privately held research and development company that specializes in information technology. Terms of the July 26 deal were not disclosed.

Atlantic Aerospace Electronics of Washington was founded in 1985 by Robert Cooper, a former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Cooper's company will become a subsidiary of Titan.

Atlantic Aerospace primarily works in communications, defense and intelligence fields and has annual revenue of less than $25 million, according to CorpTech. Titan reported $303 million in revenue in 1998.

On June 10, Titan purchased Systems Research Corp. of Boston, an IT systems and services company that works with the Defense Department and Federal Aviation Administration.
Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego finalized its purchase of Boeing Information Services and renamed the unit, SAIC Information Services Sector.

William Delaney, who had been president of the Boeing unit, will run the SAIC business. Terms of the deal, which include Boeing's real estate in Vienna, Va., were not disclosed. The 1,200-employee unit is expected to have $300 million in 1999 revenue.
Another major acquisition, General Dynamics' $1 billion deal to acquire three of four GTE Corp. government information technology units, is on track to close by the end of September, company officials said.

The fourth unit, GTE Information Systems Division, Chantilly, Va., remains for sale. The 880-employee unit, which provides telecommunications, networking and systems integration services, has major contracts with the departments of Defense, Justice and State and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Logicon Inc., the information technology subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp., helped the giant defense and aerospace contractor beat Wall Street's expectations for the quarter ended June 30.

Northrop, based in Los Angeles, earned $113 million for the quarter, or $1.64 a share, up 22 percent from $93 million a year ago. Analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research Inc. expected earnings of $1.59 a share.

Logicon's revenue for the quarter jumped 27 percent to $365 million because of a contract with NASA and the U.S. Air Force. The company cited the Joint Base Operations and Support Contract, a NASA-Air Force effort won in the third quarter of 1998.
DynCorp of Reston, Va., won a $51 million task order to provide desktop services to the Office of the Inspector General at Housing and Urban Development. The tasking came under its General Services Administration Seat Management contract.

DynCorp's TechServ unit will support 700 users over 10 years. Services include a virtual private network that will support encryption and archiving requirements for the investigative functions of the inspector general's office.

"We have high security needs that dictate independent operation, but we did not want to try to assemble an in-house staff," said Susan Gaffney, HUD inspector general.
SEEC Inc. is picking up an important government connection with its purchase of Mozart Systems Corp. of Burlingame, Calif. The deal should close by mid-August.The purchase price was not disclosed. Spokesmen from both companies declined to comment on the status and value of Mozart's government contracts.

Pittsburgh-based SEEC, which had $11 million in revenue in 1998, develops products for rapid implementation of e-business applications. Mozart, which is working on a project for the Army Logistical Systems Support Center, develops technology for integrating legacy computer systems with Internet and intranet computing.
The Census Bureau has released the first in a series of state reports on the Professional, Scientific and Technical Services sector of the economy.

The report, "1997 Economic Census, Geographic Area Series, Professional, Scientific and Technical Services: Wyoming," presents statewide, metropolitan area, county and place data for taxable firms in Wyoming. It also presents statewide and metropolitan area data for tax-exempt firms. Reports on this sector for the remaining states will be issued through 1999.
Massachusetts is the top state in making the transition to a new economy that relies on high-tech industries and entrepreneurial activity, according to a ranking by the Progressive Policy Institute.

Trailing Massachusetts were California, Colorado, Washington, Connecticut and Utah. At the bottom were Mississippi at No. 50, followed by Arkansas and West Virginia.

The study, "The State New Economy Index," ranked the states based on such criteria as the number of knowledge jobs, percentage of adults using the Internet, number of high-tech jobs, and the amount of venture capital activity.

The Washington-based Progressive Policy Institute is a think tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council.