Alarm Capital Alliance enters affluent new market

MEDIA, Pa.—Alarm Capital Alliance has expanded into an affluent new market—The Hamptons—with the purchase of a 32-year-old security company based in Southhampton, N.Y.

Security Communications Audio Network Corp. (SCAN) has $170,000 in RMR and 5,000 mostly residential customers, Anastasia Bottos, ACA's chief business development officer and executive VP of acquisitions, told Security Systems News.

She said SCAN has “a pretty substantial footprint in The Hamptons.” That section of Long Island boasts some of the nation's most expensive residential properties.

Bottos said SCAN had low attrition and loyal customers. “They've grown primarily through referrals, which speaks to their business,” she said. “People are coming to them to set up accounts; they're not really going out into the market and marketing themselves.”

The company's owners are retiring from the security alarm industry but they are assisting in the transition, Bottos said. The acquisition took place May 24, she said.

SCAN will continue to operate under its own name, but as a member of Newtown Square, Pa.-based My Alarm Center, which is ACA's direct-to-consumer name. In essence, ACA, which has more than 140,000 customers nationwide and is headquartered here, will maintain SCAN as a new ACA regional branch. ACA is taking on its approximately 40 employees, Bottos told SSN.

Robert Diederiks, president of SCAN, said in a prepared statement: “I am excited for SCAN's future as I believe our merger with ACA opens up a world of new and innovative options to our current and future customers.”

Bottos declined to discuss terms of the deal other than to say, “I think everyone was happy with it.”

Although ACA has a lot of concentration in New York, this is the company's first regional office there, she said.

“Our model really is for sellers to maintain their own brand and own operation,” Bottos explained. However, she said, in this case, SCAN is “in an area where we don't have any other customer concentration so we've acquired the company outright.”

The transaction moved speedily and was completed in 35 days. The smooth transaction was partly because the business was so well run and healthy, which is something that ACA focuses on, Bottos said.

“One of the things we definitely pride ourselves on is the ability to come in and make the transition and transaction as painless as possible, and part of that is to do it cleanly and accurately and with speed,” she told SSN.

In addition to Bottos, John Steffanato, ACA senior executive vice president, and Scott Peterson, the company's new CFO, assisted with the acquisition. Barry Epstein of Vertex Capital represented SCAN during the transaction.