Lanvac adds sixth central station in Canada

OTTAWA, Ontario—Lanvac, a wholesale monitoring provider based here, has added a sixth central station to its Canadian network by acquiring Safe Harbour Security of Sydney, Nova Scotia in a deal valued at $3 million.

The acquisition, announced this month, included 300 dealers and 50,000 accounts, bringing Lanvac's total across Canada to 1,000 dealers and more than 300,000 customers. About 55 percent of the accounts are residential, with 45 percent commercial and institutional.

“We did not have a significant presence in Atlantic Canada, so this gives us a foothold there that we think will allow for future expansion and some exciting growth,” Bert O'Grady, vice president of special projects for Lanvac, told Security Systems News.

John Georgoudes, co-president, CEO and CFO of Lanvac, called the deal “a good fit” and said it had significance for his family.

“We wanted to have a station in Sydney,” he said in a prepared statement. “Our parents, when they first emigrated [from Greece], landed in Sydney. That's where our roots are, so it's sort of like going back to our roots. Safe Harbour looked like a good company and it had a good set of accounts. When the opportunity came up, we took it.”

The Sydney central station, which employs 30 people, will be called Oceania. Lanvac's five other stations are Odyssey in Montreal, Atlantis in Quebec City, Nemesis in Toronto, Pegasus in Ottawa and Pacifica in Vancouver.

All six facilities will work together “as one big megastation,” Georgoudes said. “Any station can respond to any signal originating from any part of the country in real time.”

Lanvac celebrated its 30^th anniversary in April. O'Grady said the company had no immediate plans for further acquisitions as it moved into its fourth decade, but it is always looking for opportunities to grow.

“I would think that our next target market will be somewhere in the prairie provinces,” he said. “Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba would be the logical next step.”