AAA Northern California, Nevada and Utah (AAA NCNU) is acquiring SAFE Security Companies, a smart home security monitoring company based in San Ramon, Calif. that is ranked No. 13 on the SDM 100. SAFE Security will operate as an independent subsidiary of AAA.
SAFE had gross revenues of $68,850,878 in 2017, and recurring monthly revenues of $5,667,110 on Dec. 31, 2017, as reported to the SDM 100. The company, which has been owned by ICV Partners in N.Y. for the past five years, has 430 full-time employees. This acquisition comes after SAFE’s president, CEO and founder Paul Sargenti retired in April.
AAA, a not-for-profit, fully tax-paying corporation, is a federation of affiliated motor clubs with more than 1,100 offices in the U.S. and Canada. It is owned by its more than 58 million members. It offers personal service (including roadside assistance) through its network of more than 40,000 full-time employees. Mike Hetke, formerly executive vice president and chief innovation officer of AAA NCNU, will join SAFE as president and CEO of the company. In addition to Northern California, Nevada and Utah, AAA NCNU operates in Alaska, Arizona, Montana and Wyoming.
“AAA NCNU is aggressively looking at alternatives beyond their core businesses over the next many years and have made the assumption that alarm and smart home services is a logical expansion of the roadside assistance they provide," said John Mack, executive vice president and co-head of investment banking at Imperial Capital, the exclusive financial advisor to AAA NCNU in the transaction. "I think this is a nice endorsement of the alarm industry that these smart guys with a big vision of where the future in the smart home alarm services business is going to go, and I think they view this as a big opportunity.”
The transaction closed on Friday, Nov. 2.
