Booz Allen vs. CACI: September 2026 Quarter Compared

Booz Allen Hamilton and CACI International sell much the same thing to much the same customer: technical staff, software and systems for the US military, intelligence agencies and civilian departments. Both reported the three months ended September 30, 2026, but under different labels. Booz Allen's fiscal year ends March 31, so this was its fiscal Q2 2027 (filed on this site as Q3 2026, the calendar quarter). CACI's fiscal year ends in June, so the same three months were its fiscal Q1 2027. Same quarter, same federal budget, same stopgap funding deadline, which makes the gap between their results more telling than either set of numbers alone.

The short version: CACI's operating business improved and Booz Allen's weakened. Booz Allen's earnings per share still rose, but because of a lower tax rate. CACI's EPS barely rose, because interest on acquisition debt absorbed most of its operating gain.

At a glance

• Revenue: CACI +8.2%, Booz Allen -3.9%. Only 2.1% of CACI's growth was organic (from businesses it already owned a year earlier); Booz Allen's decline came mostly from civilian agencies, where its revenue fell 15.1%.
• Operating margin: CACI up to 10.0% from 9.3%, Booz Allen down to 8.8% from 9.8%. Operating margin is the share of revenue left after running the business, before interest and tax. This is the clearest sign of which business strengthened.
• EPS: Booz Allen +5.6%, CACI +3.7%, for opposite reasons. Booz Allen's pre-tax income fell 14.6% but its tax rate dropped to 9.0% from 24.9%. CACI's pre-tax income rose 4.9% while its tax rate edged up to 25.2%.

Side by side

All figures are from our two published reports, which take them from each company's 10-Q and earnings release. EPS levels aren't comparable across the two companies (different share counts); the growth rates are. Book-to-bill is new orders divided by revenue billed in the quarter; above 1.0x means the order book is being refilled faster than it is used up.

Where they diverge

Civilian work is the main split

Both companies lost civilian-agency revenue, but by very different amounts. Booz Allen's Civil and Commercial revenue fell 15.1% to $702 million, still a quarter of its business. Its 10-Q blames "a slowed procurement environment in the prior year, which resulted in a slower start to programs in the current year, predominantly from civil customers," and headcount fell to about 31,000 from 32,500. CACI's federal civilian revenue fell only 3.7% to $396.4 million, and it is a smaller slice of the company (16.0%).

On the defense side the gap runs the other way. CACI's Department of War revenue (excluding intelligence) rose 14.8% to $1,354.3 million, adding $174.6 million, almost all of its $187.0 million revenue increase. Booz Allen's National Security business (defense plus intelligence) rose only 0.6%, even though it includes two acquisitions. Neither filing says how much of the defense revenue came from acquired businesses, so the organic defense trend at each company can't be measured exactly.

Part of Booz Allen's headline decline is lower-margin pass-through revenue: billable expenses (subcontractor, travel and other costs it passes on to the customer) fell 11%, and revenue excluding them fell only 0.8%. That softens the revenue picture but not the profit one: operating income still fell 13.4%.

Mix pushed CACI's margin up and costs pushed Booz Allen's down

CACI's margin gain came from what it sells and how it is paid. "Technology" revenue (software, electronic-warfare and space hardware) rose 11.4% and reached 58.6% of the total, and fixed-price revenue rose 34.4% to 33.2% of the total. On a fixed-price contract the contractor keeps any savings but absorbs any overruns, so margins can be higher and riskier. CACI's direct costs fell to 64.6% of revenue from 67.6%, which the 10-Q attributes "to a favorable shift in revenue mix."

Booz Allen moved in the opposite direction on three lines: cost of revenue rose to 48% of revenue from 46% as staff costs fell more slowly than revenue; general and administrative costs rose 6%, including $17 million of acquisition costs; and depreciation and amortization rose 24% as it began amortizing intangibles from Defy Security and Ultra I&C Mission Solutions. Its fixed-price share rose only slightly, to 20% from 19%.

Below operating profit, the stories flip

This is where the headline EPS numbers become misleading for both companies.

• Booz Allen: tax. The effective tax rate fell to 9.0% from 24.9%, which the 10-Q attributes to tax planning around the foreign-derived income deduction. Our report estimates that at last year's rate EPS would have been roughly $1.24, about 13% lower than a year ago, instead of 5.6% higher. Full-year guidance assumes a 16-19% rate, so a 9% quarter shouldn't be expected to repeat. Buybacks also helped: diluted shares fell 2.7%. Booz Allen's adjusted EPS (+18.1%) starts from GAAP net income, so it includes the same low tax rate.
• CACI: interest. Interest expense rose $27.1 million (+58.6%) to $73.2 million on debt taken on for the $2.64 billion ARKA Group acquisition, absorbing about three-quarters of the $35.3 million gain in operating profit. There was no help from taxes (rate up slightly) or buybacks ($4.4 million; diluted shares up 0.7%). CACI's adjusted EPS (+11.8%) excludes only acquisition amortization, so it still carries the full interest cost.

Both are carrying acquisition debt

Both companies have borrowed to buy their way into higher-margin product work. Booz Allen spent $934 million on acquisitions in the first half, issued $1.2 billion of notes, and has net debt of $4.08 billion, 3.3x trailing adjusted EBITDA, up from 2.5x a year earlier. CACI has $4.86 billion of long-term debt against $279 million of cash, and its interest bill is already showing the cost. For CACI the acquisition is already adding revenue and margin; for Booz Allen, this quarter showed the acquisition costs (fees, amortization, interest) before any measurable revenue contribution.

Orders: CACI's funded backlog is the stronger signal

CACI booked $4.83 billion of awards (2.0x book-to-bill), including two awards it counted at $1.2 billion each in backlog, and its funded backlog, the part for which money has actually been appropriated, rose 14.8% to $6.2 billion. Its total backlog, though, was essentially flat at $34.0 billion even with ARKA added. Booz Allen's book-to-bill was 1.5x (1.1x over twelve months), with total backlog up 1.9% to $40.9 billion (about $164 million of that from Ultra) and funded backlog up 5.0%. Booz Allen's 10-Q also says "the slowed procurement environment and reductions in contract value have had a negative effect on our ability to convert backlog to revenue."

What both need from here

Both raised guidance, and both guidance ranges require a stronger rest of the year than the first part:

• Booz Allen raised fiscal 2027 adjusted EPS guidance to $6.50-$6.70 (from $6.00-$6.35) and narrowed revenue to $11.3-$11.6 billion (1-3% growth). With first-half revenue down 4.1%, our report estimates the second half needs to grow roughly 5-12%. The EPS raise is much larger than the adjusted EBITDA raise (1.6% at the bottom of the range), which points to items below operating profit, such as tax, rather than stronger operations.
• CACI raised fiscal 2027 revenue guidance to $10.70-$10.90 billion and adjusted EPS to $33.18-$34.08. Reaching even the low end requires the remaining three quarters to average about $2.74 billion, roughly 11% above Q1, which in practice means organic growth well above 2%.

The shared risk is the calendar. Both 10-Qs flag the continuing resolution, a stopgap that keeps agencies funded at last year's levels and typically blocks new program starts, that expires December 11, 2026, with a shutdown possible after it. CACI calls the broader defense budget "constructive" and points to about $156 billion of multi-year defense money that stays available through a shutdown, which matters more to a company with about 79% of revenue from defense and intelligence. Booz Allen, with a quarter of its revenue from civilian and commercial customers, is more exposed to the agency-by-agency contract reviews its 10-Q describes, and to the April 30, 2026 executive order pushing agencies toward fixed-price contracts.

Takeaway: CACI had the stronger quarter where it counts: revenue grew (if only 2.1% organically), operating income rose 16.6% and margin widened to 10.0%, while Booz Allen's operating income fell 13.4% and its margin shrank to 8.8%. The EPS figures say the opposite only because Booz Allen's tax rate fell to 9.0% and CACI's interest bill rose 58.6%. Booz Allen's EPS gain is less likely to repeat; CACI's EPS will lag its operating improvement until its debt comes down. Both now depend on the December 11 funding deadline passing without a shutdown to hit their second-half revenue targets.

Full analyses: Booz Allen Hamilton, quarter ended September 30, 2026 · CACI International, fiscal Q1 2027