In an effort to expand its offering of satellite-network products, a spinoff company of Rockwell Automation reached an agreement to acquire a Gwinnett County satellite-technology company.

This month Rockwell Collins Inc. agreed to acquire DataPath Inc. of Duluth for $130 million in cash. The deal is pending regulatory approval. Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough partners Steve Berson and Brian Galison represented DataPath. They worked with DataPath's general counsel, Steven Wilson. Chadbourne & Parke advised Rockwell Collins.

Rockwell Collins, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, makes cockpit display systems, flight deck avionics, cabin electronics and mission communications for the aviation industry and the military. DataPath makes satellite communications networks for the military and for commercial customers.

A group of four Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough attorneys in Atlanta advised Videolarm Inc. on its acquisition by Moog Inc. for $45 million in cash.

Partner Rhys Wilson was lead counsel to Videolarm’s founder, Ray Pagano. Wilson was joined by of counsel David Goldberg and Jim Holmes and associate Hemant Dutta, according to the law firm. Hodgson Russ in Buffalo, N.Y. advised Moog. The deal closed Feb. 13.

Videolarm makes closed-circuit television cameras and vandal resistant protective housings for surveillance systems. The Decatur, Ga. company had 2008 sales of $19.5 million. Moog, of East Aurora, N.Y., makes “motion and fluid controls and systems for a broad range of applications in aerospace and defense, industrial and medical markets,” according to the company’s annual report.

Moog Inc. is not to be confused with Moog Music Inc., the successor company to a firm founded by electrical engineer Bob Moog in the late 1970s. Moog Music manufactured the world’s first analog synthesizer, which was called the Moog and was invented by Bob Moog.

King & Spalding partner Ray Baltz was lead corporate counsel to EMS Technologies Inc. on its acquisition of Formation Inc.

EMS Technologies paid $42 million to acquire Formation, according to a regulatory filing. The company could pay an additional $15 million, if Formation meets specific cash-flow targets this year and next year.

Pepper Hamilton partner James Rosener in New York advised Formation on the deal.

Norcross-based EMS Technologies makes wireless communications products for three different business segments. Its largest segment makes handheld computers for the logistics industry. EMS Technologies also supplies products to the U.S. Department of Defense. Formation, of Moorestown, N.J., makes the ToughDisk-brand data storage product and various wireless communications products.

When a real estate developer dropped out of a military housing project in Texas, partner Scott Rafshoon’s client stepped into the void.

Balfour Beatty Communities LLC last month closed on a $142 million deal to acquire a project to privatize housing at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Balfour Beatty Communities will manage one phase of a project that has already been completed, according to Rafshoon. Balfour Beatty Communities will also complete the design, construction and management of a second phase at the same location. Balfour Beatty Communities acquired the project from Realm Holdings Inc. of Austin, Texas.

Realm Holdings was forced to sell its interest in the project because it was unable to obtain financing for an expansion of the project that was desired by the U.S. Air Force, Rafshoon said.

The deal was closed in spite of the “incredibly tight credit market,” Rafshoon said. They were able to close in part because the deal had the backing of the U.S. government. Although Capmark Financial Group Inc. is the primary lender, the deal also has the imprimatur of the U.S. Air Force.

It also helped that the deal closed during a narrow window of time in December when interest rates and credit spreads “tended to match up where it was financeable,” Rafshoon said.

Further, Capmark knew that Balfour Beatty Communities had a solid reputation for completing these types of projects at other U.S. military bases, he said.

Balfour Beatty Communities was formerly known as GMH Military Housing. In April, the British construction/engineering giant Balfour Beatty PLC acquired GMH Military Housing and changed its name. Rafshoon had counted GMH Military Housing as a client and has continued to represent the company under its new owner.

Balfour Beatty’s deal for GMH Military Housing came about a year after the U.K. company acquired one of GMH Military Housing’s key development partners, Centex Construction. Centex, which had been a unit of residential homebuilder Centex Corp., focuses on commercial building projects.

Rafshoon managed about a dozen McKenna attorneys on the transaction, from various practice groups including corporate finance, mergers & acquisitions, tax, construction, environmental, government contracts, government affairs, real estate and real estate finance.

Kutak Rock represented Capmark. Andrews Kurth advised Realm Holdings.

EMS Technologies Inc., a Norcross, Ga. wireless broadband communications firm, was counseled by King & Spalding partner Mark Thompson in London on a $46 million acquisition of a British company.

In the all-cash deal agreement, EMS will acquire Satamatics Global Ltd. of Tewkesbury, United Kingdom. The companies expect to close the deal early next year, pending approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and other conditions.

Thompson was lead partner for King & Spalding. Other Atlanta-based attorneys involved included partners Eleanor Banister, Ray Baltz, Suzanne Feese and Holmes Hawkins. Steptoe & Johnson partner Alfred Mamlet in Washington advised Satamatics.

Satamatics makes satellite data communications terminals for mobile asset tracking and monitoring. EMS is involved in several business segments, such as providing voice, e-mail, video conferencing and Internet capabilities on aircraft. EMS also makes LXE-brand handheld and vehicle-mounted computers used in logistics management; and it makes microwave-based communications equipment for defense contractors.

Out with the old, in with the new.

With its bankruptcy filing and the sale of its U.S. broker-dealer and investment bank operations to Barclays Plc, storied investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s ceased to exist on Monday as an independent company. The end of Lehman will result in many things, of course, but one of those things is Lehman’s disappearance from the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks.

On Friday, S&P replaced Lehman Brothers with Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Fla. Many mutual funds and other money managers will now be required to buy stock in Harris Corp., if their funds are tied to the S&P 500, according to the Associated Press.

Harris just obtained a $750 million, five-year revolving credit facility from a group of lenders. SunTrust Bank served as administrative agent on the transaction. King & Spalding partner Carolyn Alford and associate Jenny Miller, both in Atlanta, advised SunTrust.

Harris is a defense contractor that makes microwave and satellite network transmission equipment, handheld radios, air traffic control systems and other types of communications products.

Omega Training Group Inc. of Columbus, Ga. tapped Burr & Forman partner Tully Hazell in Atlanta for the lead corporate counsel gig on its $61 million all-cash acquisition by Cubic Corp.

Burr partner Bill Joseph worked on tax issues and associate Kathryn Bouchillon worked with Hazell on corporate matters. Cubic General Counsel William L. Hoese handled legal matters on behalf of his company.

Omega provides training, logistics, software development and staffing services to the U.S. Army at Fort Benning, Ga. and other Army bases. Omega employs 790 people worldwide. The deal did not require Hart-Scott-Rodino Act review for antitrust concerns, nor did it require approval by the U.S. Department of Defense, Hazell said.

Cubic, of San Diego, has two business units. One is a maker of combat-simulation products, surveillance systems and robots for the military. The other makes smart cards, passenger gates and fare-collection machines for mass-transit subway and bus systems. Cubic makes the Breeze Card for Atlanta’s MARTA subway and bus network.

The U.S. economy may be in the doldrums, but the federal government keeps plugging away, signing contracts and purchasing assets and services from private companies.

While McKenna Long & Aldridge partner Jeremy Silverman wouldn’t say the federal government is water-tight safe from the recession, he did offer that federal government contractors seem to be immune from the current economic downturn. Moreover, Washington is increasingly privatizing many of its functions, creating a boon for government contractors.

“There has been a huge increase in federal spending with private firms over the last decade,” said Silverman, an M&A partner in Atlanta.

Federal spending on government contracts increased from $209 billion in 2000 to $430 billion in 2007, according to USAspending.gov.

The steady stream of business generated by federal contracts has caught the eye of investors. One such deal involved i2S Inc., a Columbia, Md.-based company that provides information-technology services to federal agencies like the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, as well as private government contractors like Northrop Grumman.

In the transaction, the management of i2S acquired control of the company from the Grosvenor Funds of Washington. Silverman and other McKenna Long attorneys advised i2S on the deal.

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Powell Goldstein partner Todd Wade was adviser to Eagle Group International LLC on its buyout by the giant defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Eagle Group, headquartered near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, provides logistics and information technology services, as well as healthcare management, to the U.S. Department of Defense. Eagle Group was founded in 1995 and the company employs more than 1,350 people.

Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Md., is the world’s largest defense contractor.