Analytics Vendor NCI Acquired By Investors

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NCI Inc., a big data analytics and IT vendor to the Defense Department and other federal and state government agencies, said it has agreed to be acquired by a private equity investment fund.

NCI said Monday (July 3) it is being acquired by H.I.G. Capital as part of an all-cash transaction valued at about $283 million. Under terms of the merger agreement, H.I.G. will acquire outstanding shares of NCI’s (NASDAQ: NCIT) common stock for $20 per share.

The share price triggered an immediate response from by a shareholder rights law firm alleging that the acquisition undervalued NCI’s stock. It noted that at least one Wall Street analyst had pegged NCI’s stock at $26 per share. The San Diego-based firm, Johnson & Weaver, said its investigation would focus on whether NCI board members breached their fiduciary duties in connection with the proposed sale.

NCI’s board unanimously approved the transaction.

The analytics vendor based in Reston, Va., also provides IT services to DOD and other federal agencies. It announced receipt of a five-year contract last month to provide “knowledge-based professional services” to the U.S. Army’s Communications-Electronics Command. The “prime position” award could be worth as much as $37.4 billion, the company said.

The Army program covers C4ISR requirements, or command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The contract also includes five one-year options.

Much of the company’s big data and data analytics expertise focuses on applications for the U.S. intelligence and health care sectors. Along with grid and high performance computing, it also specializes in areas such as data mining and graph analytics and “enhancement services.”

Analytics tools also include data preparation and modeling, computational linguistics and data visualization.

NCI’s data mining and statistical algorithms are used with techniques such as cluster analysis, data fusion and integration, machine learning, natural language processing, neural networks, predictive modeling and time series analysis, according the company’s web site.

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