ADS Security acquires Tennessee fold-in

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—ADS Security last week acquired nearly 600 accounts from Stewart Security Systems in Shelbyville, Tenn.

It's the fourth buy for ADS this year and more acquisitions are planned, according to Patrick Ritter, VP/controller at ADS.

“You will see other transactions successfully closed in 2014,” Ritter told Security Systems News. He said they would be in new markets and existing ones.

“We are very active in expanding our footprint throughout the Southeastern U.S., and we're also very active in doing fold-in acquisitions in existing markets, such as the Stewart acquisition,” he said.

Ritter declined to provide further details at this point.

He also declined to disclose the terms of the Stewart deal, which closed Aug. 14, or how much RMR was involved. But he said the buy of the accounts, which were roughly half residential and half commercial, strengthens ADS' position in the middle of the state, one of its largest markets.

“This acquisition has helped us gain a foothold in the Shelbyville, Tenn. market, which is a market that we've served for 15 years,” he said.

The accounts will be serviced from ADS's headquarters here, he said. ADS acquired a technician from the family-owned company in the deal, so the former Stewart accounts will be serviced “by the same local Stewart technician that the customers have known for years,” Ritter said.

The customers also will have more home automation choices, he said. “Stewart Security already offered customers some advanced services related to home automation but we will be able to take the customer's technology experience to the next level,” Ritter said.

Ritter said Stewart's security division dated back to the 1970s but the company wanted to turn its full concentration on its electrical contracting business, Stewart Inc. “After knowing each other for several years, the Stewart owners decided that we were the right kind of company that they wanted to take care of their customers as they shift their focus to 100 percent electrical contracting,” he said.

He said Stewart Inc. now “will be an integral partner with ADS on security projects, but they will no longer be installing or servicing security systems.”

ADS acquired two Alabama companies in March, and a South Carolina company in April.

ADS, established in 1990, has more than 70,000 customers in seven states in the Southeast: Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida. It has its own UL-listed, Five Diamond monitoring center.

Ritter has said revenues in 2013 were nearly $36 million, up 6 percent from 2012. As of this spring RMR was $2.25 million, up from $2.09 million at the end of 2012.