Jamie Bennet
Executive Mosaic is proud to induct Sam Maness, managing director of the Defense and Government Services group at Raymond James, into the 2024 Wash100. He is recognized with the Wash100 Award based on his group’s guidance of government contractors during major corporate consolidations.
Vote for Maness as your favorite GovCon leader as part of the 2024 Wash100 popular vote competition! Voting closes on April 30, so visit Wash100.com to cast your ten votes today.
“As a managing director in Raymond James’ Defense and Government Services group, Sam is exceptionally well networked and embedded in the core executive community of government contracting and support services. He is well-known as one of the few executives in the Washington, D.C. area that can literally fill a baseball stadium with the industry’s best and brightest. Sam is a bold leader within the increasingly important investment banking segment of the bustling GovCon marketplace, and we’re excited to include him in the Wash100 ranks for the first time this year,” said Jim Garrettson, CEO of Executive Mosaic and founder of the Wash100 Award.
Maness graduated from Duke University in 2001 with a degree in economics and Germanic languages and literature. Immediately after that, he was recruited to become managing director at BB&T Capital Markets, a banking and sales firm catering to government, nonprofit and middle market clients.
He spent 14 years at BB&T before joining Raymond James, where he specializes in defense technology and government services. His projects have involved prominent contractors including Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, L3Harris Technologies, ManTech, Cubic, SRA and CSC.
In the past year, his team represented various companies in important mergers and acquisitions. They helped close the sale of Strategic Technology Consulting to Arcfield, a portfolio company of Veritas Capital.
Raymond James managed a number of company consolidations in May 2023 alone. It was the sole financial advisor to Resolute Technologies during Eqlipse Technologies’ acquisition of the IT services provider. Eqlipse is a subsidiary of BlueHalo.
“The terrific leadership team at Eqlipse, Dennis Kelly, Katie Selbe and Sarah Otchet has built an outstanding platform, where the Resolute team can continue to drive growth while maintaining their mission-focused culture,” Maness remarked at the time.
Eqlipse dealt with Raymond James in another merger– its purchase of Gradient Zero, an Austrian software and machine learning company. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Raymond James was instrumental in the sale of national security IT services firm INNOPLEX to Enlightenment Capital. The deal allowed Enlightenment to form RealmOne, an intelligence platform combining the capabilities of INNOPLEX, iNovex, Secure Innovations and HTS Infosys.
In October, Maness helped launch the 2023 Raymond James Defense and Government Conference, which highlighted the increasing role of private equity in the government contracting sector.
“We like to think that most of the movers and shakers in defense and government M&A attend this,” he commented. “Every year, deals get made in the hallways at this event. It’s intended as a forum for firms that are truly making a difference in winning the next fight or changing the way government functions, as opposed to more traditional players in our space. It’s a gathering of firms that are really doing things in a different manner,” he added.
The contributions of investment firms in GovCon growth were further underlined in Raymond James’ Defense and Government Market Intel Report, which was published in January. The study found that 45 percent of the 89 mergers and acquisitions in the fourth quarter of 2023 were represented by private equity companies.
Sam Maness continues to bolster the impact of private equity in federal procurement as Raymond James’ managing director for defense and government services investment banking. Executive Mosaic is honored to include him in the Wash100 league of leaders for 2024.
