Chopper 2004, the winning bid for the LUH-72A utilized Sikorsky's Government contracting resources to win this bid. I won't get into the relationships between the Sikorsky management and Bell, I'll let you figure this out yourself, but the information I provided is from first hand accounts and conversations directly with me. Sikorsky had no product for this specific requirement, but you may be able to determine who might, and the motivation they might have in this arrangement.
Clearly SAC had way more than a foot in the door with the US DoD procurement office, but as I recall, SAC had no ‘serious’ intention of bidding a platform for the LUH program.
It was Eurocopter, who,
out of the blue, approached SAC to ask if they would team up with them in order to bid the 145, as Eurocopter had never won a US DoD contract and thought that having Sikorsky on-board would add credibility to their bid. Clearly it did.
The plan was that American Eurocopter would build the airframes and Sikorsky would manage the TLS, something they already did on a massive scale for other US Mil platforms.
As for SAC/Bell link-up, it was a source of amusement at the time, that SAC’s top three execs (JP, SE & CB) were all ex Bell.