New York-based private equity firm OceanSound Partners has closed a single-asset continuation fund worth approximately $1.15 billion in connection with the divestment of its portfolio company, SMX Group.
Apollo S3 serves as the lead investor in the continuation fund, which will provide incremental capital and enable OceanSound to support SMX’s acquisition strategy, according to a joint release published Tuesday.
Established in 1995, SMX provides digital transformation platforms and mission support services for customers across the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community and federal civilian agencies.
In 2019, OceanSound acquired a majority interest in Washington, D.C. area-based SMX. As a result of the transaction and completion of the continuation fund, the private equity firm will continue to control and manage SMX.
“We made our initial investment in SMX based on our perspective that commercial technology solutions tailored to government use cases would be increasingly relevant across the public sector to increase productivity, reduce costs, enhance cyber resilience, and improve the quality of interactions between constituents and the agencies that serve them,” said Joe Benavides, managing partner of OceanSound.
“We look forward to extending our ownership of SMX in partnership with Peter LaMontagne and well-respected investors led by S3 to continue building a disruptive and trusted provider of scalable and compliant technology solutions that enable customers to solve complex mission, security, and performance challenges across government and highly regulated enterprise end markets,” added Benavides.
LaMontagne, CEO of SMX, said OceanSound has supported the company in the last five years by providing industry expertise, operational, execution and strategic support and backing its five acquisitions to facilitate the delivery of digital transformation platforms to its client base.
Evercore served as OceanSound’s exclusive financial adviser. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison acted as the private equity firm’s legal advisers.
Proskauer Rose acted as legal counsel to Apollo S3 in the transaction.
