ASG buys in Louisiana, Florida

BELTSVILLE, Md.—Bolstering its platforms in Louisiana and Florida, super-regional security company ASG on April 22 announced two acquisitions: Alarm Detection Systems (ADS) of Houma, La., and Amsafe Security Systems, based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

With these deals done, ASG is working “to build the territories to continue to grow internally, which is the thesis for all the companies we acquire,” Joe Nuccio, ASG CEO, told Security Systems News.

Nuccio and other ASG executives, CFO Ralph Masino and SVP sales and marketing Bob Ryan, were excited about ASG's performance in the first 90 days of 2014.

“We've hit our stride already and we're firing on the organic growth side really well right now,” Ryan said.

It is generally accepted that Q1 tends to be a slow quarter for integrators. The fact that ASG had a strong Q1, “says really good things about what this year can be,” Ryan said, noting that Q2 and Q3 “are the really hot quarters for the security industry.”

The ADS purchase will become a “satellite site for the New Orleans operation,” Ryan said. Ruben Williams, former owner of ADS, will join ASG in a commercial sales role and most of his team, about 12 people, will join ASG as well.

The deal brings approximately 2,000 customers and $45,000 of RMR to ASG, Masino said. The account balance is 54 percent commercial, 46 percent residential.

Houma, La. is within the same media market at New Orleans, so the former ADS “is already benefitting from the media advertising we do there,” Ryan said. ASG does television advertising in select secondary markets, he said.

The Amsafe deal is an account-only purchase of 500 customers. It's a bolt-on to ASG's newest region, Florida, which it opened in January of this year with the purchase of National Alarm Systems.

Steve Rubin and Ron Davis of Long Grove, Ill.-based Davis Mergers and Acquisitions Group represented both sellers, Alarm Detection and Amsafe Security Systems.