Vivint owners sell guard company for $1.67 billion

NEW YORK—Blackstone, a private equity firm based here, recently announced the $1.67 billion sale of security guard company AlliedBarton to Wendel, a Paris-based private equity group. AlliedBarton is now looking at acquisitions, Robert Perry, president and CEO of Robert H. Perry and Associates, told Security Systems News.

Perry said the deal will impact the entire industry. “I think it's very positive for the industry … I think it's going to attract a lot more investors to the industry because of this [roughly 12x] multiple that was paid,” he told SSN. Robert H. Perry and Associates is a consulting firm specializing in guard companies.

Blackstone first discussed selling AlliedBarton in March. The estimated value of the company was then $1.5 billion.

Perry thinks that this could have positive and negative impacts on AlliedBarton. “On the positive side, it's going to probably mean that there's a significant amount of investment into AlliedBarton,” he said

“Typically these private equity groups have about five to seven years of ownership. … Wendel Group is different, they call themselves long-term investors, which means that they're probably going to put a lot of money into AlliedBarton for long-term improvements,” Perry said.

“On the negative side, it won't be able to call itself a U.S.-owned company anymore,” Perry said. This deal means about 37 percent of the overall contract security industry is now foreign-owned, up from 28 percent before the AlliedBarton deal, he said.

Perry said this is Wendel's first step into the security space.

AlliedBarton currently has more than 3,300 customers, 120 regional offices throughout the US, and more than 60,000 employees. Wendel was founded in 1704.

Wendel did not respond to requests for comments, nor did AlliedBarton or Blackstone.