VRI makes PERS acquisition

FRANKLIN, Ohio—VRI, a large PERS provider based here, recently purchased Healthcom, a healthcare technology provider based in Sullivan, Ill. VRI announced the partnership at the end of June.

“We think the companies can grow more quickly together. There's opportunities to collaborate across the market segments,” Chris Hendriksen, CEO at VRI, told Security Systems News. “Secondly, we bring a little bit more scale and we have our own monitoring center, and so it allows us to do some more customized solutions that Healthcom wasn't able to do previously.”

Healthcom has about 23,000 accounts spread across the U.S., but with a concentration in the Midwest, that will be brought into VRI's TMA Five Diamond monitoring center. Following the deal, VRI has more than 150,000 accounts.

Healthcom does about $650,000 in RMR and as a result of the purchase VRI should finish the year with more than $5 million in RMR, according to Hendriksen.

VRI will bring on Healthcom's 35 staff and main facility in Sullivan, Ill. Following the acquisition, VRI had about 360 total employees.

“We're going to maintain both brands,” Hendriksen said. “We think that both have some strength in certain markets.”

The two companies have different emphases, Hendriksen noted. VRI has expertise with health plans, government agencies and care partners, while Healthcom's focus is on healthcare providers, government agencies and individual consumers.

“We started working on the transaction last year and closed it officially on May 31,” Hendriksen said.

VRI partnered with Pamlico Capital—its majority owner—as well as PrivateBank, Capital Source and Stellus Capital in this deal. Woodbridge International advised Healthcom in the transaction.