Littlejohn Exits Wyle Holdings
After building on its portfolio holding for five years, the PE firm makes the sale.
May 29, 2009
Court Square Capital will buy Littlejohn & Co. LLC’s El Segundo, Calif., based Wyle Holdings, an aerospace engineering firm.
The sale marks an exit after five years for Littlejohn in which the company built its portfolio holding out via acquisitions of the aeronautics unit of General Dynamics and RS Information Systems. In that time, Littlejohn’s Wyle grew to an estimated revenue total of $800 million and expanded its visibility in the ever-important Washington, D.C. market.
Last year, Wyle’s test operations unit based in Santa Clara, Calif., were sold to Silicon Turnkey Solutions.
Court Square Capital sale figures were not made available, Littlejohn did not comment by press time. Court Square Capital declined to comment.
Littlejohn is a Greenwich, Connecticut-based control oriented PE shop that makes plays in the middle market space; Court Square Capital is a New York based private equity firm managing about $6 billion in capital commitments.
While the sector has not been downright frothy, defense M&A has been executed often enough in 2009 to support market experts who said the industry would be more resilient to the ongoing recession thanks to its support from government contracts. Italian defense firm Finmeccanica S.p.A’s DRS Technologies, a New Jersey-based military technology company, will acquire Soneticom, Inc., it was revealed earlier this month. Also, Six3 Systems was formed earlier this year by former ManTech chief executive Robert Coleman and GTCR, and is expected to make acquisitions to support its national security and defense services platform.
For more information on related topics, visit the following:
