Computer Sciences Corp.

2100 E. Grand Ave.

Year founded: 1959

Industry: Information technology

Post 200 Category: Top Companies Headquartered Outside Region

Revenue: $14.77 Billion

Net Income/Loss: $519.40 Million

Earnings per share: $2.75

Dividend: n/a

Stockholder equity: $5.50 Billion

Auditor: Deloitte & Touche LLP

Stock: CSC

Assets: $11.80 Billion

Market capitalization: $8.91 Billion

52-week high: 58 12/7/2004

52-week low: 38.07 5/12/2004

Chairman and CEO: Van B. Honeycutt

President and COO: Michael W. Laphen

Employees: 90000

Local employees: 14000

Description: CSC is an information-technology services company that splits its business between the government and the private sector. The company's specialties include outsourcing, customer-relationship management and information security.

Developments: CSC spent much of 2004 reaping the revenue gains brought by its 2003 acquisition of Reston-based DynCorp, then capped the year by selling off a significant chunk of what it had bought. The $914 million DynCorp purchase gave CSC an important foothold in the burgeoning homeland security market, driving up the company's federal contract totals. But DynCorp also came with an international unit that did not fit into CSC's long-term strategy of providing the government with information technology. The international unit, which provided bodyguards to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and trained civilian police officers in hot-spots around the globe, was fast-growing, but its profit margins were relatively low. So the company put it on the block early in 2004 and cemented a deal in December, selling it, DynMarine and parts of DynCorp Technical Services to Veritas Capital for $850 million. CSC planned to use money from the sale to pay down its debt and fund future acquisitions. CSC still owns DynCorp's central information technology business. In terms of its contracts, CSC faced at least one major letdown last year, losing out on a massive project to manage information about foreign visitors to the United States. CSC was a finalist for the US-VISIT contract, worth about $10 billion, but rival Accenture Corp got the nod. CSC also faced criticism for its handling of an Internal Revenue Service upgrade of its computer systems. Following multiple missed deadlines by CSC, IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson said he would take away from the company a $40 million piece of a larger $3 billion contract. CSC won some major business on the commercial side. For example, it garnered a 10-year, $1.6 billion deal to provide information technology to Sears, Roebuck and Co. In October, it won a slightly smaller contract, for 10 years and $1.35 billion, with Ascension Health, the largest U.S. nonprofit health system. CSC also agreed to an extension of outsourcing contracts with General Dynamics Corp. that will give it an additional $1.6 billion over about seven years.