UCC Exec ‘Couldn’t Be Happier’ About New Ownership
Lydia Security Monitoring used a portion of a new $75 million credit facility to complete the purchase. The UCC brand will be maintained.
WILLIAMSTOWN, N.J. – Lydia Security Monitoring, parent company of wholesale monitoring leader COPS Monitoring, on Thursday announced it acquired United Central Control (UCC), a contract monitoring company based in San Antonio. Lydia exercised a portion of its recent $75 million credit facility led by Citizens Bank to complete the purchase.
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Established in 1982, UCC provides central station services to 750 dealers and 230,000 accounts. Under the UCC and COPS Monitoring brands, Lydia will provide monitoring services for more than 4,200 alarm dealers and integrators representing nearly two million accounts nationwide.
“It was important to former owners Don Munford and Lannie Green to find a company that would be open to maintaining UCC’s operations and keeping our dedicated team intact,” UCC President Teresa Gonzalez says. “We believe this acquisition is in the best interests of all UCC’s stakeholders – our employees, our dealers, and ultimately the end user customers.”
Jim McMullen, president and COO of COPS Monitoring, described the acquisition as “unique.”
“Historically, Lydia’s acquisitions were completed with the goal of strengthening our national central station presence by integrating the companies onto our proprietary monitoring platform under the COPS brand. This acquisition is different. UCC is a stable and growing company with a reputation for offering quality services, which is why Lydia plans to continue providing unique benefits to the UCC dealer base under its own brand,” he says.
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McMullen further explains that Lydia will continue to operate the UCC Stages monitoring platform at its current location in San Antonio, and will explore opportunities to enhance dealer services, disaster preparedness and disaster recovery capabilities by offering redundant monitoring from additional sites, along with other improvements.
“We couldn’t be happier about the acquisition, and we have received positive feedback from our dealers,” says UCC Senior Vice President Mark Matlock, who is a contributing writer for SSI‘s “Monitoring Matters” column. “One of the biggest concerns has been whether we will continue to host our annual Dove Hunt Extravaganza. We’re pleased to announce it is ‘business as usual’, and the Dove Hunt will continue as planned in late September or early October in Uvalde, Texas. We also look forward to our next UCC ‘Grow Your Business’ seminar to be held in Dallas on February 9.”
Beyond the addition of a well-run monitoring platform at UCC to the COPS family, the acquisition is further indication of the evolving role of contract monitoring participants in the market place, John Brady, president of TRG Associates, tells SSI.
“Well beyond just providing monitoring and dispatch service revenues to a diverse dealer group, the larger contract monitoring companies see the opportunity to bring more services and goods to this dealer base to grow new revenue channels for both the dealers and the contract monitoring participants,” he says. “Much like the manufacturer dealer programs of old that sought to sell equipment and other services, the larger contract monitoring players are looking at expanding their influence beyond monitoring for this growing dealer base.”
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According to COPS Monitoring, it is the largest independently owned third-party monitoring company in the industry with 1.7 million accounts across the United States, Canada and the U.S. territories in the Caribbean. With nearly 700 employees, the company operates six central stations located in New Jersey, Florida, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee and Maryland, serving about 3,500 independent alarm dealers.
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