Dear colleagues,
This morning Navigant announced the signing of a definitive agreement to be acquired by Guidehouse, a portfolio company of Veritas Capital. Veritas Capital is a leading private equity firm that invests in companies that provide critical products and services, primarily technology and technology-enabled solutions, to government and commercial customers worldwide.
Navigant will merge with Guidehouse, a strategic advisory firm that solves complex business problems for government clients at the federal, state and local levels, such as the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs. Guidehouse was acquired by Veritas in 2018 and was previously the US Public Sector (i.e. government-facing) business unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Today’s announcement follows a structured strategic review process organized by Navigant’s Board of Directors and executive management team. Veritas has agreed to purchase Navigant at a price of $28/share, or roughly $1.1B. For more details,please review the press release.
While the transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year and there are a host of decisions to still be made collaboratively by teams of people from both organizations, there are certain things we know.
Scott McIntyre, current CEO of Guidehouse, will be the CEO of the combined organization upon closing. Each of our three segment leaders – Jan Vrins from Energy, Ellen Zimiles from FSAC, and David Zito from Healthcare – will continue in their respective roles going forward and will continue to lead their segments within the combined platform.
I’m sure most of you are asking why we chose this path for Navigant, so let me take a few moments to outline the situation.
Following last year’s divestiture of our DFLT and TAS practices to Ankura, we sharpened our strategy to focus on management consulting and managed services solutions for our clients in our key industries and to build deeper digital capabilities.
Since that time, we learned that these strategic initiatives were valued by the market and our reconstituted business also attracted interest from potential strategic partners and financial sponsors as well.
From a shareholder perspective, the Board determined, after a review of strategic alternatives and the solicitation of offers from both strategic and financial partners, that this transaction was in the best interest of our shareholders.
We determined that while we have clearly been making significant progress during the past year, and could have continued to compete independently, Navigant was not moving at the pace we all wanted.
We also believe that this is the right transaction for our clients and our company.
With the right partner, we saw several opportunities:
| • | | To accelerate our digital strategy and grow our capabilities with a partner that brings to the table additional skills and access to new, complementary markets. |
| • | | To diversify the industries we serve and broaden the skills we already have. |
| • | | To expand the potential for broader career opportunities and paths for our people. |