Inform Magazine

f you were creating a Venn diagram of industries, fire and security would certainly find itself inside a sub-section where the circles overlap.

The sector could be coloured in a shade derived from those allocated to the engineering, construction and manufacturing industries – which serves to illustrate its appeal to company buyers. That’s because a prevailing theme in business sales currently is consolidation. Acquirers, especially in the fire and security sector, are increasingly taking on the guise of a top Premier League manager like Pep Guardiola or Mikel Arteta during a transfer window. “Buyers of fire and security companies are really looking to add depth to their group in certain areas, a bit like a football squad,” explained Matthew Sibley, KBS Corporate Associate Director. “The main theme these days is consolidation to increase breadth and depth in two sectors that are very complementary to each other. “There are also other cases where acquirers focus on opportunities which can open doors to more potential revenue streams, such as companies whose client bases are, for example, shopping centres or local authorities. They are looking to add more breadth to their service offering and more depth in that they call upsell and cross-sell. “But the main focus is on the synergistic USP element, as in, if I’m a buyer, what can you as a seller bring me that I don’t already have?” The answer? Something that takes them beyond their own circle on the Venn diagram, or, relating to the football analogy, a different skillset to what the squad already possesses. Fire and security continues to be a highly productive sector for KBS and in the spring of 2024, New Path, a Southampton based group that acquires well-established businesses which have built up brand recognition and reputation over many years, made two acquisitions through us. One of those was Electrifire, a Kent-based specialist in fire alarm installation, access control and CCTV systems, in a transaction overseen by Matthew Sibley. “Some groups now have the capability to roll out multiple deals and obviously the quicker they do that the larger they grow, so consolidation is really starting to snowball for certain buyers in the industry,” said Matthew.

THE FIRE AND SECURITY SECTOR: CONSOLIDATION IS KEY Fire and security is a sector of particular expertise for KBS Corporate, and one in which we have orchestrated many successful sales through the years. Matthew Sibley, Associate Director, discusses the industry’s current trends and what company owners need to know.

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