As the federal government lays out billions to overhaul its technology systems, health IT companies are swooping in to acquire federal contracts through mergers.
Maximus, a management consulting company based in Reston, Va., announced plans to acquire IT contractor Acentia for $300 million in cash on March 9. Acentia, a Falls Church, Va.-based company with approximately 1,000 employees, owns lucrative contracts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Defense Health Agency. The additional contracts will increase the percentage of Maximus' revenue that comes from federal contracts from 17 percent to 23 percent, according to the Washington Post.
Maximus is the latest merger in the IT world involving the transfer of federal contracts. Other IT mergers involving federal contracts include international IT strategy firm Accenture's acquisition of ASM Research, Lockheed Martin's purchase of Systems Made Simple in December 2014 and ManTech International's acquisition of health IT firm 7Delta in May 2014. All three companies that were acquired had task orders in the VA's $12 billion tech overhaul contract, according to the report.
Acentia itself bought a federal contract when it acquired Business Computer Applications, a small Atlanta-based IT company. The contract with the CDC was worth approximately $5 billion and lasted for 10 years, according to the report.