French firm to buy AlliedBarton Security
AlliedBarton Security Services, the Conshohocken-based security giant, will be sold to Wendel, a Paris-based private-equity firm, in a $1.67 billion cash and debt deal.
AlliedBarton Security Services, the Conshohocken-based security giant, will be sold to Wendel, a Paris-based private-equity firm, in a $1.67 billion cash and debt deal.
AlliedBarton, which began its local history as SpectaGuard, founded by former Flyers president Jay Snider, employs 6,000 locally and 55,000 nationally.
It counts 200 of the Fortune 500 as clients, along with 3,000 other landlords and tenants.
Wendel owns 11.7 percent of the Malvern-based building-materials maker Saint-Gobain, which includes Certainteed, a more well-known local materials company.
Wendel is acquiring 96 percent of AlliedBarton - the remaining 4 percent will be held by AlliedBarton's chairman and chief executive Bill Whitmore and other top officers.
"I'm going to stay with the company as chairman and CEO," Whitmore said Wednesday, declining to comment further in an interview.
Wendel is paying AlliedBarton's current owner, Blackstone Group, $670 million in cash and has also agreed to take over $990 million in AlliedBarton debt, Wendel spokeswoman Caroline Decaux said, boosting the total consideration to about $1.67 billion.
The deal is expected to close at year's end.
AlliedBarton is highly profitable, fast-growing and "well-positioned to continue to grow, both organically and through acquisitions," Frédéric Lemoine, chairman of Wendel's executive board, said in a statement.
Blackstone, one of the largest U.S. private-equity firms, paid $700 million in cash, plus up to $50 million in a performance bonus, to buy AlliedBarton from previous owner Ronald O. Perelman's MacAndrews & Forbes holding company in 2008.
Many of the company's guards are represented by the Service Employees International Union. The company's guards employed in Philadelphia were among the last to be unionized in SEIU's national campaign.
"I believe it's a positive change," said union member Michael Brown, an AlliedBarton guard who works as a bicycle officer at Temple University.
"I hope that everything I worked hard to get, I'll still have it once this company comes into play," he said, enumerating paid health, dental, and eye care as well as improved training and equipment.
Valarie Long, executive vice president of SEIU's property services division, echoed Brown's optimism, saying in a statement that "Wendel is a family-owned company with a history of responsible, long-term investment. Wendel also has a particular interest in ensuring workplace safety - an area of special interest for security officers."
The sale comes at a time when private security outnumbers law enforcement 2-1, with nearly two million employed in the security industry, AlliedBarton's president Carol Johnson wrote in an e-mail.
AlliedBarton had revenue of $2.18 billion last year and earnings (before interest, tax, depreciation/amortization) of $148 million. Wendel says its price is 11.6 times AlliedBarton's free cash flow.
Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to Wendel as 'the owner' of Saint-Gobain. It is a major investor, but the company is publicly-traded
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