PAE completes $208M acquisition, receives $98M Air Force contract

Falls Church contractor buys Centra Technology Inc.

Published November 23, 2020 by Sydney Lake

Falls Church-based defense and government services contractor Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE) announced Friday it has completed its $208 million cash acquisition of Burlington, Massachusetts-based Centra Technology Inc.

The acquisition was first announced in late October.

“The acquisition of Centra expands PAE’s addressable market into new, attractive mission-critical business areas, opening up important higher growth and margin market areas for the worldwide PAE enterprise,” PAE President and CEO John Heller said in a statement. “The combination of PAE’s and Centra’s capabilities and experience will position PAE to bid a significantly expanded pipeline of opportunities that were previously not actionable to PAE prior to the acquisition.”

Centra provides intelligence analysis and is focused on mission-critical services for the intelligence community and other U.S. national and homeland security customers. The company employs more than 760 people, most of whom hold top secret security clearances. 

PAE also provides mission support services to government clients. The company employs more than 20,000 workers across its operations in 60 countries and reported more than $2.7 billion in revenue last year.

Also on Friday, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that the Air Force had awarded PAE a $98 million contract to provide aircrew tactics evaluation and combat training activities in electronic warfare to the U.S. Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFAFRICA).

Under the contract, PAE will also operate and maintain USAFE-AFAFRICA’s electronic warfare range infrastructure and equipment, according to the DOD. The contract is expected to be completed by November 2025. Work will be performed in Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy.

Subscribe to Virginia Business.

Get our daily e-newsletter.