CACI acknowledges rumor of BAE purchase interest

CACI International declined to comment today on rumors that BAE Systems is interested in acquiring the integrator. The official acknowledgement of the rumor, published in a British business newspaper over the weekend, came as CACI's stock rose 9 percent.

BAE is Britain’s largest defense contractor.

The CACI statement said that the company's policy is not to comment on merger and acquisition rumors.

"The company will continue to execute its strategic growth plan to reach $3 billion in annual revenue by its fiscal year ending June 30, 2009," the statement reads.

The purchase “would make sense because BAE has been on the acquisition trail for some time,” said Bob Guerra, partner at Guerra Kiviat. “CACI does get them into some markets that they’re not really into” such as financials and information security, Guerra said. “That’s a real core competency of CACI and I think [if] you merge the competences of the two and you’ve got a very powerful information assurance kind of capability,” he said.

Guerra said it has been his experience that one out of every five of such purchase rumors actually happens. But, he said that when the stock rises as high as it did Monday, “that usually means people are really talking seriously.”

He said that Jack London, CACI's president, chief executive officer and chairman, has complete control over the company.

"If he doesn’t want to sell, it’s not going to happen," Guerra said.