Boeing's sale of Insitu and more transactions to note

Boeing

As part of its reset, the aerospace giant has agreed to sell three of its autonomous and electric flight subsidiaries to Archer Aviation in return for a minority ownership stake in the air taxi maker.

Archer is acquiring Insitu, a military drone maker Boeing acquired in 2008, Wisk Aero, which is developing an autonomous electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, and air traffic management system developer SkyGrid. The acquisitions are part of a push by the company to expand its defense portfolio.

Boeing and Archer are also entering into a collaboration and technology sharing agreement, under which Boeing will retain access to Wisk’s core autonomous flight technology for current and future aircraft. All parties involved expect the transactions to close before this year ends.

Insitu is known in the market for ScanEagle, an unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aerial vehicle, and the smaller RQ-21 Blackjack.

For Boeing, its agreement to sell these subsidiaries is part of the company’s larger reset since CEO Kelly Ortberg joined in the summer of 2024 to lead its operational and financial turnaround effort.

Moelis & Company is acting as financial adviser to Archer, which is also working with Fenwick & West as outside counsel. J.P. Morgan Securities is the financial adviser to Boeing, whose outside counsel is Mayer Brown.

Acentra Health

This technology solutions integrator has acquired a maker of a cloud-based technology platform used to manage long-term care, home- and community-based care, and behavioral health cases.

FEI Solutions opened for business in 1999 to help government agencies and health organizations modernize Medicaid and human services technology environments. FEI’s platform is designed to offer configurable models that help clients manage functions in incident reporting, data analysis, claims and invoices, and provider management.

With this transaction, Acentra is pushing to expand its technology offerings in areas such as assessment and eligibility. Acentra views its portfolio as touching claims and assessment handling efforts, along with case management.

“Government healthcare agencies are under increasing pressure to modernize complex programs while improving the experience for providers, case managers, and the individuals they serve,” Acentra CEO Todd Stottlemyer said in a release.

Acentra is owned by The Carlyle Group and was created in late 2022 via the merger of CNSI and Kepro, which coincided with the hire of Stottlemyer to lead the combined company.

In 2024, Acentra purchased EAP Consultants to add mental health and well-being programs for workplaces.

FedTec

This digital transformation and professional services provider is now a subsidiary of Reply, an Italy-headquartered company that designs and implements solutions based on the web and social networks.

FedTec employs nearly 400 people and posted approximately $100 million in revenue for its most recent fiscal year. Data from USASpending.gov lists FedTec’s main customers as including the Social Security Administration, Defense Information Systems Agency, General Services Administration and IRS.

By agreeing on this sale of itself, FedTec is looking to lean on the resources of a more global company like Reply in order to position for larger and more complex contracts.

Reply’s own technology and business roadmap covers areas such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud modernization, data and enterprise platforms.

Ramanjit Singh will continue to lead the FedTec business as chief executive, while other key leadership team members are also remaining in place. Singh joined FedTec as CEO in 2024 after 17 years at 22nd Century Technologies, where his most recent role was a managing partner position.

Mona Kaur founded the company as FreeAlliance in 2004, then rebranded it to FedTec in 2024. She handed the CEO role over to Singh and has remained involved as president.

Precise Systems

This engineering services provider has purchased a developer of modeling and simulation software to build a greater presence across training environments for aerospace, defense and transportation organizations.

Ternion opened for business in 1989 to create commercial-off-the-shelf and customized simulations for use in live, virtual and constructive training environments. Ternion designed its flagship FLAMES tool to act as a flexible simulation framework for use in command and control training, mission planning and rehearsal, systems engineering, test and evaluation, experimentation and analysis.

“The addition of the Ternion team and the FLAMES platform will help us accelerate technology innovation, shorten the path from concept to mission application, and better prepare our customers for increasingly dynamic operating environments,” Precise Systems CEO Scott Pfister said in a release.

Precise Systems’ goal is to integrate Ternion’s technologies into other offerings in engineering, digital transformation, mission systems, software development and interactive training.

Philpott Ball & Werner were the financial advisers to Ternion.

Precise Systems was first backed in 2023 by Bluestone Investment Partners, which has since supported three acquisitions by the contractor including the Ternion purchase.