Apollo to Reportedly Take ADT Public for $15B in 2018
The WSJ is reporting that ADT could register for the IPO in the fall and go public at the end of 2018.
Anonymous sources have told the Wall Street Journal that private-equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC is preparing an initial public offering for ADT at a $15 billion plus valuation.
Apollo acquired ADT last February for $7 billion and then merged the company with Protection 1. Apollo acquired Protection 1 along with ASG Security in July 2015.
The stock market listing could be the largest private equity-backed initial public offering since hotel company Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc (HLT.N) went public with a $19.7 billion valuation in 2013, according to Reuters.
One of the sources said ADT could register for the IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by the fall and go public at the end of 2018.
However, timing could change as the IPO market is often very volatile. So far this year, private equity backed companies have raised $5.9 billion in public offerings, down 30% from the same period in 2015 and 70% in 2014, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Recording $2 billion in revenue in 2015, ADT employs 20,000 people across nearly 300 locations and serves 7 million customers, of which 2 million are connected through the ADT Pulse app.
ADT has been putting an emphasis on improving customer service for those 7 million people since its merger with Protection 1. During an interview with SSI earlier this year, ADT Chief Marketing Officer Jamie Haenggi had this to say:
Here’s something you probably never thought you’d hear ADT saying: Yesterday, we answered 99-point-something percent of calls within 60 seconds. There were about 80 calls among more than 50,000 we took that waited longer than one minute.
That has been such a drumbeat of Protection 1: one ring, a live person answers the phone. Another thing that’s different, you go back to May 1, when we first got here. There were about 42,000 installation service calls or service calls waiting to be serviced.
That’s about a seven-day backlog. Today that’s down to 10,000, so we’re almost delivering sameday service, and we’ll continue to beat on that and organize operations such that we can deliver on the promise of sameday service.
I’m here to tell you without a doubt you can deliver operational excellence at a company the size of ADT. We’re starting to do it, and see it, and the employees are excited by it.
Would could be next in store for Apollo and ADT? Stay tuned to SSI for any updates as this report develops.
READ MORE: Click here for the latest ADT news.
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