Stanley execs talk about progress on Niscayah acquisition

Stanley CSS's parent company, Stanley Black & Decker exceeded Wall Street expectations last week with its earnings announcement.  It had Q4 revenue of $2.8b, up 17 percent over 2010 Q4 revenues, and organic revenue growth was up 6 percent over the same period.

The security segment was up 1 one percent with 4 percent organic growth in Convergent Security, according to the conference call. Security has Q4 sales of $827 million. That revenue figure is up 49 percent over last year (2010 Q4 revenues were $555m) —with most of the growth attributed to the acquisition of Niscayah.  Total 2011 Q4 sales for security were $2.6 billion compared to $2 billion in 2011.

With the Niscayah acquisition, “security makes up 30 percent of company revenues—up 23 percent from a year ago … Security segment profit was $129 million, up 37 percent and their profit rate increased to 18.5 percent, excluding acquisitions. The increase was driven by strong price inflation recovery, acquisition synergies and ongoing productivity initiatives,” Stanley Black & Decker CEO John Lundgren said in the conference call.

He said Stanley is still expecting to realize $45 million in cost synergies from the purchase of Niscayah. “It's going to drive about $0.20 of accretion and about $35 million more in synergies in 2013. That's the $80 million that we projected upon announcement of the acquisition.”

In terms of personnel changes as the result of the acquisition, Lundgren said: “Major upgrades to leadership are complete.” He said that acquisition brought with it “terrific strength in field tech and field sales and installation, both in Europe and the U.S. …so it's a nice upgrade with the combined team.”

This quarter security's “installation sales were up 12 percent globally, with monitoring RMR of 3 percent with a positive outlook,” Lundgren said. He noted the Niscayah's operating margin rate “will continue to improve …but that it will continue to be a drag on the entire segment in 2012.”

Talking about the Niscayah integration, James M. Loree, Stanley Black & Decker COO, said Stanley is following the “HSM model … so that you have a nice blend of central oversight with the local regional management . And that's going to take about 3 years to fully implement.” Stanley bought HSM in 2007 for $545 million.

Lundgren added: “we've seen the NIscayah model before, good business, too much installation, not enough recurring. We know what to do with that. And, Oh, by the wsy, we have a history with security acquisitions of improving margings uip to 400 to 1,000 basis points within two to three years … we've seen nothing [since announcing the acquisition] that would lead us to back off from that.”

Lundgren also pointed out two Niscayah strengths that Stanley will adopt and implement. He said Niscayah “is very good at recurring service revenue … maintenance, scheduled maintenance, prepaid maintenance …” and  “excellent talent” in “vertical market prowess .. particularly in financial services.”

Direct quotes are courtesy of www.SeekingAlpha.com.