WASHINGTON — Burdened by lawsuits, criminal investigations and negative publicity stemming from its private security work in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blackwater Worldwide is being put up for sale, the company has announced. "Performance doesn't matter in Washington, just politics," Prince said in a further statement. Prince, who founded the company in 1997 along with former colleagues from the Navy SEALs, said he does not anticipate having any role in Xe after the sale. A separate statement from the company’s headquarters, in Moyock, N.C., said, “Xe’s new management team has made significant changes and improvements to the company over the last 15 months, which have enabled the company to better serve the U.S. government and other customers, and will deliver additional value to a purchaser.” 
 
 In March, Xe Services sold its aviation division, Presidential Airways, to the AAR Corporation, which is based in Illinois. In April, five former Blackwater executives, including its past president, Gary Jackson, who had served as Mr. Prince’s most trusted lieutenant, were indicted on federal weapons charges. Separately, the Justice Department has opened an inquiry into whether Blackwater officials sought to bribe Iraqi government officials in order to continue to operate in Iraq after a 2007 shooting involving Blackwater guards in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.
– The private security firm that used to be known as Blackwater is up for sale, after a recent name change to Xe Services failed to cure its dismal reputation. Founder Erik Prince has put the company on the block, saying improvements since the disastrous shootout at a Baghdad intersection in 2007 should have put the company back in the good graces of the US government, but they haven't. “Performance doesn’t matter in Washington, just politics,” he complains in a statement given to the AP. Xe is still dogged by the five former execs facing weapons charges, a Justice Department inquiry into attempts to bribe Iraqi officials, and ongoing manslaughter cases against its former guards for the 2007 shooting spree, in which 17 Iraqi civilians died, the New York Times notes. While Xe Services has already sold off its aviation division, the lucky buyer will get the company's 7,000-acre compound in North Carolina, featuring shooting ranges and other military and law enforcement training facilities.