ADT Inc.

ADT Inc.
Formerly
 The ADT Corporation
Public
Traded as NYSE: ADT
Russell 1000 Component
Industry Burglary, Fire and Carbon Monoxide detection, Health safety, Cybersecurity, Fire suppression, Security systems, Communication systems, Video surveillance, Access control, Radio frequency identification, Electronic article surveillance
Founded 1874 (1874) (as American District Telegraph)
Headquarters Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.
Key people

Tim Whall
(Chief Executive Officer)
Jeff Likosar
(Chief Financial Officer)
Jim DeVries
(President)
Dan Bresingham
(Chief Administrative Officer)
P. Gray Finney
(Chief Legal Council)
Jamie R. Haenggi
(Chief Sales & Marketing Officer)
Bob Dale
(Senior VP, National Account Sales)
Donald Young
(Chief Information Officer)

Jay Darfler
(Senior VP, Secured by ADT)
Owner Apollo Global Management
Number of employees
 18,000 (2018)[1]
Website www.adt.com

ADT Inc., formerly The ADT Corporation, is an American company that provides residential and small business electronic security, fire protection, and other related alarm monitoring services in 35 countries.[2] The corporate head office is located in Boca Raton, Florida.[3] In February 2016, the company was acquired by Apollo Global Management for $6.9 billion in a leveraged buyout.[4]

History

In 1863, Edward A. Calahan invented a stock ticker[5][6][7] and formed the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company in 1867 to exploit the technology. Gold and Stock also developed a messenger system that sent instructions to and from the stock exchange floor. Three years later, the president of Gold and Stock Telegraph Company woke up to a burglar in his home, which inspired him to create a telegraph-based alert system. This system eventually connected 50 of his neighbors to a central station where all the alert boxes were monitored.[8] There were many small telegraph delivery companies in the United States in the 19th century.

In 1874, 57 district telegraph delivery companies affiliated and became "American District Telegraph". With the increase in telephone usage in the late 19th century, ADT's messenger business slowly declined in popularity. ADT tried branching out and developing their signaling business, while still maintaining their telegraph business as primary income source. ADT incorporated into Western Union in 1901 and separated its messenger business from its main signaling business at that time. In 1909, Western Union and ADT came under the control of American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T). ADT began to expand into new areas, such as fire alarms and security alarms between 1910 and 1930, but was kept separate from AT&T's Holmes alarm business. ADT became a publicly traded company in the 1960s.

In 1964, ADT was found to be a monopoly in restraint of trade. It was shown to provide almost 80% of the central station alarm service in the United States. In some cities, such as New York City and Memphis, Tennessee, they were the sole provider. They were also found to have forced competitors out of business by lowering prices below cost. They would charge national accounts very low prices in cities with competitors and much higher prices where no competition was available. ADT was forced to adopt a national price list, which could not be varied, to help establish central station competitors in cities without competition, and to pay fines and triple damages to the federal government, customers, and local competitors.[9]

In early 1987, the firm Hawley Goodall, owned by Lord Ashcroft, bought the Indianapolis-based Crime Control Inc., the fourth-largest company in the U.S. security market, for $50 million. Later in the year, it bought ADT and moved to Bermuda. This purchase transformed Hawley into the leading security services business in the United States, and resulted in the majority of its revenues coming from the North American market. As a result of the acquisition, Hawley changed its name to ADT Limited and decided to refocus its business around security services. At the end of 1987, the company sold its North American–based facility services business to Denmark's ISS A/S.

In 1997, ADT was purchased by Tyco, by means of a reverse takeover.[10]

Brinks Home Security acquisition

In January 2010, Tyco announced that it was acquiring Broadview Security (formerly called Brink's Home Security) and was merging the company with its ADT division in a transaction valued at $2.0 billion.[11] In 2008 Brink's had spun out its home security business, which accounted for 15% of Brink's revenue that year, into a separate publicly traded company. The company rebranded as Broadview in 2009 with a massive advertising campaign.[12] The ads were widely criticized as unscrupulous, fear-mongering, and exaggerating what home security systems were capable of doing.[13][14][15] Unflattering parodies of Broadview's TV commercials, mocking the company's attempts to manipulate consumers were posted online and a Saturday Night Live Parody was created featuring Andy Samberg[16][17][18][19] The acquisition of Broadview closed in mid-2010, and combined the #1 and #2 security companies in North America, adding Broadview's 1.3 million customer accounts and $565 million in annual recurring revenue to ADT's existing customer base of 7.4 million accounts and $3 billion in annual revenue.[20]

Other acquisition

In September 2011, Tyco announced that it would split into three companies, ADT being one of the three.[21] On October 1, 2012, ADT debuted as an independent public company and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: ADT). In 2014, it acquired the Canadian company Reliance Protectron Security Services.[22]

In February 2016, Apollo Global Management acquired ADT for nearly $7 billion and merged it with another home security firm, Protection 1.[23] The purchase price represented a premium of approximately 56 percent over ADT’s closing share price on February 12, 2016 and, when combined with Protection 1, represented an aggregate transaction value of approximately $15 billion.

Operations

ADT Service vehicle

ADT is the largest security company in the United States and Canada, serving over 8 million customers. As of 2013, ADT held 25% market share of the residential market and 13% of the small business market in the US. ADT maintains five monitoring stations in the United States and one in Canada.

References

  1. ↑ "Annual Report" (PDF). ADT Inc. Retrieved April 17, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Global Home Security Systems". ADT. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Company Profile for ADT Corp". Bloomberg. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
  4. ↑ "ADT in $6.9 Billion Deal to Sell Itself to Apollo Buyout Firm". The New York Times. 2016-02-02. Retrieved 2016-02-19.
  5. ↑ The History of the Stock Ticker Archived 2014-12-25 at the Wayback Machine. Stock Ticker Company
  6. ↑ "Profile for Edward A. Calahan". National Inventors Hall of Fame. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  7. ↑ "This Day in History: First stock ticker debuts". History.com. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  8. ↑ The History of ADT
  9. ↑ "ADT Monopoly National Price List". Minuteman Security Systems. Retrieved July 17, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Our History". ADT. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Tyco to Acquire Broadview Security for $1.9 Billion". New York Times DealBook. January 18, 2010.
  12. ↑ Burkitt, Laurie (30 June 2009). "Brink's $120 Million Name Change". Forbes.
  13. ↑ Community Security: Broadview Security Commercials Feed the Alarm Industry’s Poor Reputation Archived July 1, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
  14. ↑ Broadview Security commercials: Wish fulfillment fantasy for lonely women?
  15. ↑ Why Broadview Security Keeps Making Ads That Scare the Hell Out of Us
  16. ↑ Get Used to Broadview Security's You-Might-Be-Raped Ads -- They Work
  17. ↑ Dear Women: You are never safe. Seriously. We mean it. Hugs n' kisses, Broadview Security
  18. ↑ Broadview First Security Services Commercial
  19. ↑ Saturday Night Live parody: Broadview Security
  20. ↑ Tyco International Completes Acquisition of Broadview Security Archived 2011-07-14 at the Wayback Machine.
  21. ↑ Merced, Michael J. de la (September 19, 2011). "Tyco to Split Itself in 3, Hoping for More Value". New York Times DealBook.
  22. ↑ "Press release". adt.com. Retrieved October 6, 2016.
  23. ↑ Home security firm ADT acquired by Apollo Global
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