By Calvin Biesecker
ICx Technologies [ICXT] has received a potential $711 million contract for the development and production for Increment II of the Joint Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Reconnaissance System (JNBCRS 2) program, by far the largest award in the company’s relatively brief history.
ICx said the contract begins in the fourth quarter of 2008 with an initial two-year, $20.7 million development effort.
ICx went public last November and spent the prior two to three years acquiring a variety of smaller companies in the surveillance, detection and situational awareness solutions areas serving the military, security and transportation markets. Along the way, ICx has been working to better organize itself so that its separate business units work together in a more integrated way.
Up until now its largest contracts have been in the $12 million to $17 million range, primarily for transportation engineering solutions to local governments and for its Cerberus integrated sensor mobile towers it sells to the Army.
Hans Kobler, ICx’ CEO said over the summer that the company was going to start to aim higher in terms of going after bigger contracts. The company said that the JNBCRS 2 win validates its strategy of being able to provide complete solutions in the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives (CBRNE) detection space.
Morgan Keegan security analyst Brian Ruttenbur told Defense Daily yesterday he was “taken back” by the size of the award. Ruttenbur said he thought the company might be going after some programs in the $100 million range but nothing in the hundreds of millions.
Last year ICx had sales of $136 million last year. This year ICx is predicting between $177 million and $184 million in sales.
The JNBCRS 2 program is managed by the DoD Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical Biological Defense (JPEO CBD). According to previous information notices issued by the JPEO CBD, the JNBCRS 2 program has two major components.
One is the need for CBRN mission package consisting of government and commercial-off-the-shelf technology, including various handheld devices to conduct nuclear, biological and chemical reconnaissance and related missions. There will also be a need for personal protection gear such as suits and self-contained breathing apparatuses, as well as sampling kits and decontamination equipment.
The program also calls for a modular container with internal storage.
“This system will be a critical tool for our troops as they face terrorist attacks and new kinds of warfare all over the world,” Kobler said in a statement.
ICx provided few details about its win but said more information will be forthcoming shortly. The company did say it has a team of subcontractors helping it.
Ruttenbur said that while ICx isn’t the size of a Smiths Detection, which is the British-based company that supplies a range of X-Ray, chemical, biological, radiological and explosives detection systems to customers throughout the world, the company does have a breadth of products that enables it to be competitive with the bigger companies.
ICx’ products in the CBRNE space include handheld explosives trace detectors, radiation detection equipment, handheld and wall mounted biological detectors, and various kits and equipment for chemical detection and identification.
The company’s stock price climbed over 13 percent to close yesterday at $8.75, up $1.04.
The JPEO CBD did not return phone calls about the award.