CSC, ACS May Be Bought

Blackstone Group and Hewlett-Packard Co. are considering a possible buyout of Computer Sciences Corp., and private equity buyers are looking to buy Affiliated Computer Services Corp. for $8 billion, as financiers consider investing in the lucrative computer outsourcing sector, as reported today by the Wall Street Journal.

The purchase of Computer Sciences, which provides consulting and outsourcing for corporations and government agencies, will rely on the price of the company and ownership structure. CSC’s market capitalization is almost $9.4 billion and holds $1 billion in debt.

In the deal for ACS, Blackstone, Texas Pacific Group, Bain Capital and Silver Lake Partners may announce the purchase of ACS by Monday, the Journal reports, CSC and ACS have different business models with only a slight redundancy in business. CSC manages more IT outsourcing for companies, and ACS focuses more on business-process outsourcing, helping its corporate clients deal with processing payments, for example. It is possible that at some point Blackstone might invite its partners in the ACS deal into the CSC deal, the Journal reports.

–Allan Holmes