Alliant Techsystems Inc. has officially lost out on a contract to continue operating a big Army ammunition plant in Virginia.
The firm reported Tuesday that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied its protest of the U.S. Army's awarding last May of a 10-year, $850 million contract to run the plant to BAE Systems, a big British defense contractor.
Along with the protest, Alliant had been hoping a revised contract proposal to the Army might allow it to continue running the plant. But after the GAO's denial, the Army officially informed Alliant that it was not the winning bidder.
Alliant has held the contract to operate the Radford, Va., arsenal since 1995, when it bought a company that had run the facility since it was established in 1941. The ammo operation is also the nation's only supplier of a key material used in explosives and rocket propellants.
After BAE won the bidding, Alliant filed a protest with the GAO. In August, the agency told the company that the protest had led the Army to take "corrective action," Alliant said in a federal securities filing, including accepting revised proposals.
In October, Alliant submitted a revised proposal to the Army, but also submitted another protest to the GAO, as it "did not believe that the U.S. Army had taken the appropriate corrective actions," according to a securities filing.
Alliant recently moved its headquarters to Arlington, Va., but it still has about 2,700 employees in the Twin Cities, including about 200 at its former headquarters in Eden Prairie.
Mike Hughlett • 612-673-7003
