A Note From Our President & Founder Jim Garrettson
The military’s chief weapons buyer sought to throw cold water this week on the idea of consolidation among the U.S.’ largest prime contractors in a year that has seen a rapid pace of merger-and-acquisition deals in the government contracting industry.
Frank Kendall — defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics — told a group of reporters Wednesday the Defense Department wants Congress’ help to examine methods to limit consolidation among the U.S.’ top weapons manufacturers, Defense News reported.
Kendall said he expects to start the conversation with Congress within the next few months and cited legal and policy tools as potential means to preserve the defense industrial base’s current landscape of prime contractors and suppliers.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Kendall raised no objections to Lockheed Martin’s planned acquisition of helicopter maker Sikorsky for $9 billion that cleared the antitrust approval process last week and said he did not directly address any specific deal in his comments.
This year has seen a flood of GovCon M&A deals not seen since the early 1990s such as Harris Corp.’s purchase of Exelis, the future CSC Government Services’ pending acquisition of SRA International, SAIC’s buy of Scitor and Engility’s deal for TASC.
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Our newsroom editor Ross Wilkers spoke with Federal News Radio live Thursday morning for a segment to analyze what Kendall’s comments could mean for GovCon’s M&A market and other developments from September surrounding the GovCon Index, Executive Mosaic’s composite stock index of 30 contracting firms.
The Index traded Monday and Tuesday in correction territory, or 10 percent down from its most recent high, before a jump Wednesday to close above that mark.
Wilkers and “In Depth†host Francis Rose examined how the Index was subject to the same global economic headwinds that dragged U.S. markets in September, how the upcoming earnings season could give a picture of the GovCon sector’s health and Aerojet Rocketdyne’s move to get in the action on 2015’s M&A spree.
Click here to listen to the full 9-minute segment that aired Thursday.
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DHA Vet Allen Middleton Heads to Booz Allen
Middleton retired from government service in the spring after a four-decade career that concluded with service as deputy director at the Defense Health Agency.
$612B Defense Policy Bill Clears House
House lawmakers voted 270-156 Thursday to clear the legislation and the Senate is scheduled to take up the bill next week despite a veto threat.
Casey Coleman, senior vice president of global government solutions at Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) and a two-time Wash100 award winner, has said agencies should treat citizens as customers, empower employees and build strategic partnerships on the cloud to facilitate the delivery of government services and transform missions. She wrote that treating citizens as customers allows agencies to operate “outside-in” and helps them create a “coalition of yes” or an environment that encourages citizens to be more involved.
Casey Coleman, senior vice president of global government solutions at Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), said that agencies should implement cloud computing platforms to address the needs of people they serve and increase their confidence in the government. Coleman wrote that cloud services could enable agencies to immediately address the “trust gap†between the public’s expectations and
Weekly Roundup March 27 – March 31 2017 Click here to see Real-Time GovCon Sector Quotes A Note From Our President & Founder Jim Garrettson This week, the GovCon industry witnessed several high-profile private sector executive moves. It goes without saying that these leadership changes could impact industry in a positive way, introducing new business practices and styles
