ADS acquires third company in five months

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—ADS Security, a super-regional security and automation company headquartered here, has acquired customer accounts from DetectAlert of Melbourne, Fla. The fold-in deal includes four employees and approximately 1,300 accounts that will be handled out of the existing ADS office in Melbourne.

The purchase of DetectAlert is the third purchase for ADS this year, following the acquisition of 3,000 accounts in Sanford, N.C. and 1,300 accounts in Northport, Ala. In 2015, ADS acquired security companies in Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, totaling approximately 6,500 accounts.

“Closing three deals in five months is keeping us on our toes,” John Cerasuolo, president and CEO of ADS Security told Security Systems News. “With this latest purchase, we are bringing accounts in that grow our account base and create a much stronger footprint in Florida, while giving us the scale that allows us to deliver a broader range of services to customers. Fold-ins like this are really helpful from a financial standpoint.”

Cerasuolo said acquired talent is as important as accounts. “That is an important part of our success and our formula. It is easy to get stale if you don't have new ideas, and we always get good insight, ideas and recommendations from employees that have joined us over the years through these deals.”

The new-hire orientation meetings are an important part of the process, noted Cerasuolo. “We started these years ago where we bring all of the new people from the different branches into Nashville,” he explained. “We just had about 20 new people in here for a few days, and leadership got to spend a few days with them and get to know them, socialize and tell them about the company's history and culture.”

As ADS continues to grow, Cerasuolo said it gets more and more challenging and important to make sure that everybody is approaching the business “with a consistency that we expect across all of these different locations.”

With five acquisitions in 2014 and four in 2015, Cerasulo expects ADS to make a few more purchases this year, including one at some point this summer.