General Dynamics completes CSRA acquisition for $9.7 billion

After a brief period of bidding wars, General Dynamics on Tuesday officially acquired CSRA.

The $9.7 billion acquisition, which includes about $2.8 billion in CSRA debt, makes General Dynamics IT the largest provider of technology services to the federal government by a hefty margin.

According to Govini, the two Falls Church, Virginia-based companies combined for $22.7 billion in revenue from the federal IT market between fiscal 2014 and 2017. Leidos, the highest grossing federal IT vendor until this point, earned $17.2 billion in federal IT services during that period.

“The combined CSRA and GDIT offers innovative, competitive and compelling solutions to our customers, and provides attractive free cash flow coupled with good incremental return on capital for investors,” said Phebe Novakovic, chairman and CEO of General Dynamics. “GDIT is positioned to deliver cost-effective, next-generation IT solutions and services to the Department of Defense, the intelligence community and federal civilian agencies as they modernize their information systems.”

The acquisition will nearly double General Dynamics’s IT work with the Defense Department, according to Govini.  “General Dynamics’ past performance rates would skyrocket in critical sectors, increasing within the Department of Defense by 93 percent, in HHS and VA by 59 percent, and more than tripling across public safety and other civilian agencies combined,” the research group says in a recent report on the acquisition. It will also help diversify GDIT’s business with public safety and non-health civilian agencies.

The deal wasn’t without competition, however. Weeks after GD announced its proposed acquisition, Arlington, Virginia-based CACI announced its hope to make a better offer. But last week, it announced it withdrew its $7.2 billion offer.