Kajax
Engineering, Inc. was a privately held company that had approximately
$50 million in annual revenues. The Company was a professional
services firm that focused on providing technology services to
a diversified mix of departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
The Company's services assisted their clients in the building,
operation and use of their information technology infrastructure.
KEI's business focused on four principal service areas: systems
integration, IT outsourcing services, training, and information
management.
KEI was founded in 1989 and graduated from the 8(a) program in
1995. Since graduating from the program, the Company's revenues
had grown over 82%. The Company employed over 600 employees positioned
across the country. Despite having successfully transitioned the
business from the minority set-aside program to the unrestricted
competitive marketplace and nearly doubling the business during
this transition, the business owner was increasingly seeing his
company's types of services being consolidated by the government
clients into much larger contracts. This contract consolidation
led the business owner to seek a larger "home" for his
customers and employees.
WWC's investment bankers designed and implemented a process
under which several types of buyers were contacted:
- government professional services firms;
- commercial IT services firms; and
- larger diversified firms with distinct technology-oriented
business platforms.
Our transaction team was able to engage a small number of strategic
buyers in serious discussions with the Company.
The process led to the Company agreeing to be purchased by a
subsidiary of a large international diversified services company,
Pearson Plc. of the United Kingdom, in an all cash transaction.
NCS Pearson, the U.S. subsidiary of Pearson Plc. that actually
purchased the business, is a market leader in education, testing,
assessment, complex data management and government solutions.
WWC Securities' detailed knowledge and experience in the Government
professional services market made it possible for Pearson Plc.
and its subsidiary NCS Pearson to complete the company's acquisition
of KEI, Pearson's first acquisition in the government solutions
industry.
