After Technology Success, Kampf Looks to Help Others Grow

Joseph M. Kampf made a name for himself in Washington when he took the helm of Anteon International Corp., a Fairfax technology firm.

He put the company together in 1996 with $45 million and the help of a New York private equity firm. Ten years later, Anteon had acquired 10 companies. It went from earning $109 million in revenue to raking in close to $1.7 billion by 2005. Kampf took the company public in 2002 and finalized its sale to defense contracting giant General Dynamics for $2.1 billion in June.

With the help of six former Anteon executives, Kampf recently started a new company, CoVant Management, a private equity fund designed to help firms grow in federal markets.

He is looking for technology companies to take Anteon's growth model to expand in the government contracting industry, which he estimates is now worth about $170 billion.

"You can't be satisfied with what you have," he said at a luncheon hosted by Executive Biz in Vienna on Tuesday. "You have to consider the results you want in relation to the marketplace and competition."

The secret to growing a company, he said, is to position it in areas that are growing faster than the overall market. General Dynamics's interest in Anteon signals that key industry players, which traditionally dealt with weapons and hardware, are becoming more interested in technology and are willing to spend top dollar for technology services. Other companies, Kampf predicts, will probably follow suit.

"There's probably $100 billion in available capital waiting to be invested in this industry," he said. "You just have to leverage it."

Herndon Firm Staying on Nasdaq

After trying to fix accounting errors related to past stock option grants, ePlus, a Herndon-based maker of cost management software, will be able to continue listing its stock on the Nasdaq Global Market, at least for now.

The company said the Nasdaq's listing council is reviewing ePlus's case.

On Jan. 4, ePlus notified the market that it would not be able to file its latest annual report, as well as quarterly reports for the periods ending June 30 and Sept. 30 and several other restatements, by the Jan. 15 deadline imposed by the panel in the fall. The company now has until March 2 to submit more information to the panel; ePlus said it will file the reports once it is able to finalize the amount of its expenses for stock-based compensation.

In a statement, the company said it has been "diligently working to resolve issues related to accounting for stock options granted since its initial public offering in 1996, which is the sole reason underlying its delay in filing its annual and quarterly reports."