The Attrition Measurement Study continues to develop meaningful trends. Results from 2013 —the latest year for which data are available — show that attrition-lost-to-competition increased and residential net attrition rose to a three-year high.

In both cases, buyers’ and sellers’ interests are best served when they each have professional consultants, brokers and attorneys that are very familiar with these industries.

The life safety industries have been fortunate over the last 20 years in that monitoring services associated with recurring monthly revenues (RMR) have been reliant on hardwired systems whose signals were transported to monitoring centers via the telephone landlines.

The market values and trades on the recurring monthly revenue (RMR) of a customer base, but there are a number of definitions and business systems used to classify and document that RMR.

While all revenue sources help drive EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and the related operating margins of the segments of the business, not every dollar of revenue has an assignable market value as a buyer assesses a company in the security and fire alarm industry.