Kastle Systems acquires monitoring station, Mutual Central Alarm Services from ADT

FALLS CHURCH, Va.—Kastle Systems International added 4,000 customer sites and a new, highly specialized UL-listed Five Diamond central station in New York City with the Nov. 21 acquisition of Mutual Central Alarm Services and Stat-Land Security Systems from ADT.

Kastle, an integrator and full-service security company, specializes in managed services for commercial real estate properties and their tenants. It protects more than 2,000 properties and 37,000 businesses across the U.S.

“The deal includes some of the highest end retailers and jewelers in New York,” Mark Ein, Kastle owner, told Security Systems News.

More importantly, the deal, signed Nov. 21, offers both companies “all kinds of cross-selling opportunities,” he said. For example, Mutual Central and Stat-Land will now be able to offer “the whole suite of services that we focus on like CheckVideo and other video services and [managed] access control,” Ein said. Kastle has a national presence, so Mutual Central and Stat-Land can now serve their New York City-based blue-chip customers through Kastle's locations outside of New York. Kastle, on the other hand, now has a central station in mid-town Manhattan, which is FDNY- approved, and 75 additional, experienced employees, he said.

John Mack, Imperial Capital's head of investment banking and managing director, who advised ADT on the deal, said Mutual and Joel Cohen, president of Mutual, now have access to  “some really unique technology that Kastle has developed over the years to sell to building owners [as well as] a national footprint, capital to invest, and a partner who really wants to grow the business.”

Kastle, based here, now has 475 employees, does about $75 million in business annually and has $4.5 million of RMR. It also has four other UL-listed central stations, which it calls operations centers.

Its other central stations are in Northern Virginia, Houston, Philadelphia—part of a joint venture—and in Australia.

In April of this year, Kastle added more managed video capabilities with the acquisition of CheckVideo.

Ein declined to release terms of the deal. Debt financing was provided by CapitalSource and Capital One.

ADT has only owned the two properties for a short time. It acquired Stat-Land and Mutual Central July 31 as part of its purchase of Devcon.

Kastle Systems has been in business since 1972. It was purchased by Ein, a venture capitalist and former principal of the Carlyle Group, in 2007.

“This is the biggest acquisition Kastle has done in its 40 year history, and it won't be our last,” Ein said. He said this deal moved along very quickly. “We first met the company five or six weeks ago. When we make a decision, we have the ability to move super fast,” he said.

Kastle has branch offices in Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Houston and Dallas. It also has three offices in Australia.