ACRE to acquire Texas-based Open Options

LAS VEGAS—ACRE, a global security services and products company, announced today it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Open Options based in Addison, Texas. This purchase will enhance ACRE's strategic expansion plans for strengthening its access control business and product portfolio, particularly in North America.

Financial details of the transaction were not released. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018.

ACRE's CEO, Joseph Grillo, stated that this transaction will continue to expand ACRE's competitive position in a highly fragmented access control market with great growth potential. “The acquisition of Open Options boosts Vanderbilt's reach in the access control market and enhances our product portfolio with the addition of an open architecture access control solution,” Grillo said in the announcement. “With the international portfolio fully integrated, it was time to turn our focus to North America.”

Grillo told Security Systems News, “Open Options is very strong brand, with a good management team, good technology, so it is just a great fit overall. And they bring us a larger proportion of the overall ACRE revenue in North America, versus Europe and the rest of the world, which is exciting.”

Kim Loy, director of technology & communications at Vanderbilt Industries, added, “I think this is a great move for ACRE, and will demonstrate the strength of ACRE in expanding our reach in access control in North America. We have different access control platforms in different markets, but each one expands our reach geographically or in vertical markets.”

She continued, “So with the acquisition of ACT, it brought us a cloud-based access control platform, which we didn't have before, and Open Options clearly brings us that open architecture that is very much in demand in the industry today and builds our strength with Mercury.”

For 20 years, Open Options has developed access control solutions that connect to leading security technologies to deliver a full-scale solution based on each customer's unique needs. Open Options has been a Mercury Security partner since 1997 and is dedicated to delivering the most advanced open-platform access control solution available on the market.

“We are pleased to join the ACRE organization with its strong global reach which will open new opportunities for the Open Options product range,” Steve Fisher, Open Options Founder and CEO, said in the announcement.

This is the latest M&A activity since ACRE completed the acquisitions of ComNet (Danbury, Conn.) and Access Control Technologies “ACT” (Dublin, Ireland) businesses in 2016.

Looking to 2019, Grillo said, “We will continue to expand our market penetration, which makes us a larger partner to Mercury as a technology partner and provider, as well as to the lock companies that we spend a lot of time working with—Allegion and ASSA ABLOY. And we will continue to try and get bigger organically and through other opportunities, such as through acquisition.”

Founded in 2012, ACRE's Vanderbilt and ComNet brands employ more than 325 employees in more than 20 countries.