Select Security goes to Kentucky and West Virginia with purchase of Secure US and three others

LANCASTER, Pa.—Super-regional Select Security moved into two new states—Kentucky and West Virginia—and added about 8,000 new accounts with the acquisition of Secure US of Morgantown, W.Va., and three companies in Kentucky.

“Right now we're running around $970,000 in RMR,” Select Security CEO Patrick Egan told Security Systems News. “We have one remaining deal [this year] that should put us over $1 million of recurring.”

The three Kentucky companies acquired by Select are: Comstar Systems in Bowling Green, AAA Systems in Elizabethtown and Bardstown Alarm in Bardstown, Ky. Together the deals added more than 4,000 new accounts.

Egan called Kentucky a “great territory for acquisitions,” which fits into Select's strategy of being the “major provider in small markets.”

Select has retained offices in Bardstown and Bowling Green. David Nardontonia, GM for Select Security's Western Region, is overseeing all of these new offices and customers. Overall, the newly acquired accounts are about 50 percent commercial and 50 percent residential.

Select's move into West Virginia took place over several months. Egan has been managing Secure US, formerly owned by Mitch Brozik, since May. After months of complex legal actions, Select acquired Secure US on Nov. 25.

“This [Secure US] has been a troubled asset for the last several years, but it is not broken, and we are making a significant investment in the company and rebranding it as Select Security,” Egan said.

Secure US brought with it about 4,400 monitored accounts and about 5,000 addresses that receive some sort of test and inspect services. Select shut down Secure US's former monitoring station, reduced the number of employees and shed a locksmith business. “We've pared it down to the core security business, what we do best: sell, install and fix,” Egan said.

“We are righting that ship,” he said.

Like Kentucky, West Virginia holds significant future acquisition opportunities, Egan said.

Select Security president Steve Firestone said the company is “adding additional sales resources to the market” and that Select is doing “$100,000 of community and investment as part of the relaunch of the business and rebranding campaign.”

Firestone said Select has made similar community investments in Kentucky including sponsoring Western Kentucky University sports teams.

Select Security is winding down a separate summer sales initiative it started a few years ago. Its Utah-based call center, which was built to onboard those residential customers, has been refocused to service all new customers.

Select Security now has 10 offices in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. Will it extend beyond that footprint?

“We have the infrastructure that will allow us to continue grow the business organically and through acquisitions,” Firestone said. “We grew 22 percent organically last year and we expect to do the same or higher this year,” he said.

“If we can make acquisitions in states that are contiguous to where we currently do business and overlay organic growth, we will do that,” Firestone said. Select Security's infrastructure “can support a business that's twice our current size.”