One morning: Four deals declared done
By
Ross Wilkers
Our email inbox got flooded on Thursday morning with announcements of four completed acquisitions, so here's a summary of what transpired.
My email inbox got flooded with announcements of three completed acquisitions in the span of a few hours earlier this morning, or Thursday to be exact.
One of them is newly-revealed to the market and comes from the world of private equity. The other three note that previously-announced transactions are now complete.
Here is a summary of all three done deals, starting with the one that is both new and complete.
BlueHalo
- What was acquired: Intelligent Automation Inc., founded in 1987 and headquartered in Rockville, Maryland.
- Who the target is: A company focused on research-and-development and prototyping efforts for customers in the Defense Department and certain commercial sectors.
- What the buyer gets: An employee base including around 75 PhD’s that focus on technology areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity, hypersonics, space, 5G, data analytics and radio frequency/communications.
- Who helped make the deal happen: Raymond James and Associates acted as the investment banking adviser for IAI. Sheppard, Mullin, Richter, and Hampton served as legal adviser to BlueHalo. Miles and Stockbridge served as legal adviser to IAI.
- Part of the backstory: Backed by private equity firm Arlington Capital Partners, BlueHalo centers its strategy around technologies the company believes will reshape modern warfare. BlueHalo completed its first acquisition with Arlington Capital’s backing earlier this summer.
Huntington Ingalls Industries
- What was acquired: Alion Science and Technology through a deal first announced in July.
- What is being paid: $1.65 billion in cash.
- Who the target is: A defense technology integrator that performs advanced engineering and research-and-development services in areas such as ISR, military training and simulation, cybersecurity and data analytics.
- What the buyer gets: More than 3,200 employees with 80 percent of them holding security clearances and increased positioning in the defense and federal solutions space.
- Looking ahead: By acquiring Alion, Huntington Ingalls sees its Technical Solutions segment that houses government services work as making up one-fourth of the company’s business alongside the historical shipbuilding core.
Accenture Federal Services
- What was acquired: Novetta Solutions, founded in 2012 and owned by The Carlyle Group since 2015.
- Who the target is: An advanced analytics company focused on the U.S. federal government in technology areas such as machine learning, cybersecurity and cloud engineering.
- What the buyer gets: Approximately 1,300 staffers will join Accenture’s U.S. federal subsidiary at now around 11,000 employees and help form a new national security portfolio to be led by Novetta CEO Tiffanny Gates.
- More on the target: When the deal was first announced in June, credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service touted Novetta’s “high degree of labor specialization within the data analytics services niche of the U.S. intelligence community.”
- Part of Novetta’s backstory: Arlington Capital Partners formed Novetta in 2012 through a merger of two portfolio companies. Carlyle Group supported Novetta’s acquisition last year of WaveStrike that created a new division focused on software engineering, data analytics and technology solutions.
GovernmentCIO
- What was acquired: Salient CRGT through a deal first announced in July.
- Who the target is: A provider of data analytics, cloud, agile software development, cybersecurity and IT infrastructure solutions to federal agencies.
- What the buyer gets: Greater scale at $700 million in expected revenue this year and roughly 2,200 employees as a larger but still midsized federal technology company.
- Who is in charge: GovernmentCIO CEO Jim Brabston will lead the combined company, former Salient CRGT CEO Tom Ferrando will join the board of directors and industry veteran Phil Nolan will become chairman.
- Part of the backstory: GovCIO’s business pre-acquisition was mostly centered on the Veterans Affairs Department and sees adding Salient CRGT as extending that work to other agencies. Salient CRGT was launched in 2015.