Small biz JV books $388M State Department contract

A joint venture of two small businesses secures a $389 million visa support contract with the State Department.

A joint venture of an Akima subsidiary and DTSV has secured a potential five-year, $388.9 million contract to help the State Department process and sort through applications for visas.

LDRM will carry out most of the work at the National Visa Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and a consular center in Williamsburg, Kentucky to support the processing of visa applications for permanent residency and shorter-term visas for tourism, business, research and temporary work.

Akima said in a release Monday that the joint venture’s services will include management, logical and administrative support to the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.

This contract represents new work for LDRM, which the Federal Procurement Data System indicates was one of seven bidders for the award that was competed as a small business set-aside.

Incumbent FCi Federal won the predecessor contract in 2013. FCi was acquired by PAE in 2017.

Meanwhile, the State Department is anticipated to make awards sometime this month on the potential $3.3 billion recompete of a global consular support services contract awarded in 2010.

Deltek data indicates the incumbent contracts with CGI Federal and General Dynamics IT expire on Feb. 25, 2020. Both companies inherited their incumbencies through acquisitions.

CGI acquired Stanley Associates the same year of the contract’s award. General Dynamics in 2018 purchased CSRA, which was formed in 2015 through a merger involving the former Computer Sciences Corp. federal business that first won the work.