BAE buys Alphatech for acquisition No. 2

BAE Systems North America Inc. has made its second acquisition in less than month, buying information technology company Alphatech Inc. for $88.4 million cash.

BAE Systems North America Inc. has made its second acquisition in less than month, buying information technology company Alphatech Inc. for $88.4 million cash, the company said Friday.

Alphatech of Burlington, Mass., specializes in image and signal processing, multi-intelligence fusion and intelligence systems for the Defense Department and other government intelligence agencies.

Alphatech will become BAE Systems Advanced Information Technologies and operate within the company's national security solutions business unit. The acquisition will complement BAE's business in the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance market, the company said.

The Alphatech acquisition comes on the heels of BAE Systems North America's $693.3 million purchase of Herndon, Va.-based DigitalNet Holdings Inc. in late October. The managed network-services company has become part of BAE Systems' IT division.

Alphatech is a privately held company that employs 322 workers and had 2003 revenue of $51 million. It was founded in 1979 by faculty members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of Cambridge, Mass. It has offices in Arlington, Va., and San Diego.

Based in Rockville, Md., defense contractor BAE Systems North America is the U.S. subsidiary of BAE Systems PLC. The North America unit designs, develops, manufactures and supports various advanced aerospace products to the federal and commercial sectors. It employs approximately 30,000 people and had 2003 revenue of more than $5 billion.