Consumer credit reporting agency Equifax has agreed to buy the credit services unit of Computer Sciences Corp. for $1 billion in cash.
The deal with struggling CSC will help generate an additional $115 million to $125 million in revenues next year for Equifax, according to a statement announcing the transaction by the Atlanta-based company.
Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton is advising Equifax on the deal through corporate partners W. Stanley Blackburn and Gregory Cinnamon, executive compensation and employee benefits partner Jennifer Schumacher, and tax partner Lynn Fowler, all based in Atlanta.
Equifax chief legal officer Kent Mast, a former Kilpatrick Stockton partner, is leading a team of in-house attorneys working on the deal that includes transactions and technology counsel Shawn Baldwin and corporate counsel Jessica Clay. Equifax announced in October that Mast would retire at year's end and be replaced by King & Spalding senior corporate partner John Kelley III in Atlanta.
Walter Driver Jr., an independent member of Equifax's board of directors since 2007 and the former president of the United States Golf Association (Jones Day partner Glen Nager assumed that role earlier this year), served as chairman of King & Spalding until his retirement from the firm in 2005. Siri Marshall, a former general counsel and chief governance and compliance officer for General Mills, is also a member of Equifax's board.
Falls Church, Va.-based CSC, a leading provider of information technology and systems integration services, has been seeking to cut costs and restructure its operations as it copes with a decline in government spending. CSC plans to use the roughly $800 million in after-tax proceeds from the sale of its credit services unit, which it operated under a contract with Equifax, to buy back shares and fund its pension plans.
