Newly independent CI Partners in ‘dream’ deal

CI Capital Partners-backed CoVant Technologies has paid an undisclosed sum for A-T Solutions, a government service training provider CI Capital’s president, Steven Lefkowitz, characterised as “a national treasure”. But the platform itself he expects will be incredibly valuable.

CoVant was established in 2006 in part by CI Partners, while it was still operating as Caxton-Iseman Capital (the firm amicably spun out in December 2007).

It was formed with $200 million from Caxton-Iseman, as well as company management, and is led by a team with deep relationships with CI Partners.

The company is led by Joseph Kampf, formerly the president and chief executive of government IT platform Anteon, which was a Caxton-Iseman portfolio company for a decade. When Anteon was sold in 2006, its $2.2 billion price tag meant a return of more than 23 times on investment for Caxton-Iseman.

“We had an incredibly successful 10-year partnership with a fantastic group of executives,” Lefkowitz said.

CoVant is the “exact same team, exact same board” as Anteon’s, he added. “Repeat business is what private equity guys dream of.”

A-T, Lefkowitz told PEO, is “of great national importance to us because it trains our armed forces to understand what to look for and how to respond to an [improvised explosive devices]”.

A “niche-y” business ranked last year by Inc. magazine as the 13th fastest growing US government services company, A-T will serve as one of several buy-and-build platforms within CoVant.

The government technology sector is a wide-ranging, roughly $150 billion a year sector that CoVant intends to capitalise on, Lefkowitz said.

“The federal IT market is, broadly speaking, an industry that has grown very significantly over the last 25 to 30 years and is an industry that in many ways supports the US government or US military,” he said, noting the firm would not back companies whose activities CI Partners find concerning, however.