Private-equity firm Arlington Capital Partners has completed its acquisition of Black Box’s Government Solutions division and going forward, the new business will operate independently under a new name.
The new entity, Tyto Athene, is a full-service systems integrator and managed-services communications systems provider for the Justice Department and other civilian federal agency operations across the world, Arlington said.
Tyto Athene will be led by the existing Black Box Government Solutions management team, including Jeff Murray, the current senior vice president, who will become CEO. Chris Meilhammer has been appointed COO, and Jason Alexander will continue to lead the company’s service delivery teams as vice president of operations.
Bob Kipps, managing director of KippsDeSanto & Co., who closely tracks mergers and acquisitions involving defense and technology firms, provided WashingtonExec with his evaluation of the deal.
“Like its 2016 purchase of iRobot’s defense business, ACP is once again leveraging its GovCon market savvy and network to reposition these units which were ‘non-core’ to their old owners,” Kipps said.
Black Box’s former CEOs, Terry Blakemore and Mike McAndrew, will join the board of directors.
“We have been very impressed with the management team and the differentiated solutions that the company provides to their government clients as well as the company’s ability to develop new technologies such as the Acuity Micro Data Center; we believe that this technology will successfully address a strategic gap at the edge of the information infrastructure of Tyto Athene’s clients,” said Michael Lustbader, a managing partner at Arlington. “Additionally, we believe that the company will benefit from a number of secular tailwinds that will allow it to continue its strong performance as the U.S. government modernizes its legacy IT infrastructure.”
Murray, the new CEO, said acting as an independent company would afford a greater level of flexibility to meet the federal government’s increasingly complex information needs.
“Our stakeholders can rest assured that the company is on sound financial footing, and that we will continue to provide our clients the services and solutions to meet their business and mission needs,” Murray said. “Arlington has a successful history of building market-leading government services businesses and we are excited to partner with Arlington to form Tyto Athene.”
Related: Arlington Capital Partners Acquires EOIR Technologies