ADT is now buying Devcon Security

that it plans on acquiring Devcon from Golden Gate for $148.5 million. This is the first large acquisition ADT has done since the spin off from Tyco last year. Devcon has around 117,000 accounts and $3.6 million in RMR. During an investor call this morning Gursahaney stated the transaction should close the first week of August. (wow that is fast!)

Just like that all 500+ Devcon employees are either ADT employees or sending out resumes and making phone calls to other alarm companies.

What is interesting is that Devcon had formally worked with Pinnacle Security here in Orem, UT. Because of that Devcon set up offices here and they have 120 employees here. If ADT keeps those employees it would have many more Utah employees than it currently has in its Salt Lake Office. We would love ADT to have more jobs here in Utah and we would love our friends at Devcon to be able to keep working here rather than move to one of ADTs main offices in Denver or Boca Raton, FL. (Not that it is up to us)

Also what is interesting is that Devcon has a partnership with Alarm.com to provide interactive services, primarily with GE/Interlogix panels. ADT chose to use iControl for its platform for interactive services which kept ADT from offering Alarm.com services. Because of the partnership with Interlogix and Alarm.com ADT has decreased its use of Interlogix. Now for what I think is the first time ever ADT will have customers that use Alarm.com. Don Boerma was interviewed by Security Systems News and told them that “if an existing Devcon customer wants to retain Alarm.com services, ADT will make that available.”

I do wonder if ADT will keep any of Devcon’s monitoring stations or not. Devcon has two, one in Staten Island, NY and one in Hollywood, Fla. With ADT offices in Boca Raton, FL (a 30 min drive or so between the two) I would imagine ADT would move most of its Hollywood operations and monitoring to its northern facilities.

Hopefully some of the better attrition rates from Devcon will rub off on ADT. Gursahaney stated that, “Devcon attrition rates, overall, are better than average at ADT today.” But then again ADT has around 6.5 million customers to try and keep instead of 117,000.

With Protection One acquiring a few of the former Pinnacle sales force and purchasing the IT Infrastructure along with some sales and assets from Elite Security just last year,then Monitronics announcing their acquisition of Security Networks last month, there is a ton of consolidation going on in the Utah security Industry.

Written by Zions Security Alarms, Utah Alarm Association Member.