[Infowarrior] - Blackwater changes names again

[Richard Forno]

Wall Street Journal
December 12, 2011 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204319004577089021757803802.html

Company Once Known As Blackwater Ditches Xe For Yet Another New Name

By Nathan Hodge

Despite new ownership, a new board and new management, security contractor
Xe Services LLC could never shake a troublesome nickname: the company
formerly known as Blackwater.

Now, it's the company formerly known as Xe.

On Monday, Virginia-based Xe plans to unveil a new name--Academi--and new
logo. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ted Wright, president
and chief executive, said the name change aims to signal a strategy shift by
one of the U.S. government's biggest providers of training and security
services.

Mr. Wright said Academi will try to be more "boring."

Founded by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, the original Blackwater cultivated
a special-operations mystique. But it was tarnished by a string of
high-profile incidents, including a deadly 2007 shootout in Iraq that
ultimately led to its reorganization and rebranding as Xe Services. Mr.
Prince left the business in 2010, selling his stake to investor group USTC
Holdings LLC.

Mr. Wright came on board this summer as part of a continuing corporate
reorganization. In recent meetings with clients, he said he explained that
the new corporate identity was supposed to stress the company's focus on
regulatory compliance and contract management, in addition to its track
record of protecting clients. "I tell them, from now on, I'm going to be in
the background; I'm going to be boring," he said. "You're not going to see
me in headlines."

But Mr. Wright may be courting controversy in one area. He said he would
like to take Academi's business back to Iraq, and has hired an outside
company to help it apply for an operating license there. "I think
eventually, we're going to get a license; we're going to do business in
Iraq," he said.

In its various incarnations, Academi has provided protective details for
U.S. diplomats and officials in hot spots around the globe. But it is still
excluded from one of the most lucrative markets for private security: The
Iraqi government stripped the company of its operating license after the
2007 shootout.

Demand for security contractors in Iraq has surged, however. The State
Department is hiring a large contract security force to protect the U.S.
mission there, and private security firms also are eyeing possible work for
energy companies as the Iraqi oil-and-gas sector opens up to foreign
investment.

Deborah Avant, a professor at the University of Denver who is an expert on
private security firms, said the State Department was hiring a "fairly large
contingent of people that will be doing a variety of things" in Iraq.

Iraq's regulatory and political climate, she said, is fast-changing, and the
dynamic will shift after the withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of the
year.

The rebranded Academi, meanwhile, wants to focus on a new line of business:
security assessment. It already provides guards and runs training
facilities, but wants to expands its offerings by assessing security risks
for both private-sector and government clients.

The company said it has trained 50,000 people and conducted more than 60,000
protective security missions around the world in the past seven years.


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Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.