Vanderbilt announced on Wednesday that is has completed its acquisition of Access Control Technology (ACT) Ltd., a manufacturer of access control, video management and door entry systems based in Dublin, Ireland. The purchase, which was first announced in August, is intended to grow the company’s footprint in the European market while also expanding their product portfolio.
Just over a year ago, Vanderbilt acquired the Siemens Security Products line of business, which significantly expanded the company’s international presence and also bolstered their internal research and development capabilities. The company subsequently established a headquarters facility in Wiesbaden, Germany, to help streamline operations for the newly combined organization.
Tasked with overseeing the integration of these two companies into Vanderbilt is industry veteran Joseph Grillo, the company’s CEO. Grillo, whose career in the security industry spans more than 30 years, has lead an aggressive growth strategy at Vanderbilt since the investment firm he founded, ACRE LLC, first acquired the company in 2012 from Ingersoll Rand. I recently caught up with Grillo to discuss how these acquisitions have solidified the company’s presence in Europe and what the future holds for future expansion efforts.
Griffin: How does ACT fit into the Vanderbilt portfolio?
Grillo: We added significant market share in Ireland and the UK, which are mature but sizable markets for the access control industry. We also added some new products and technology, including a new product ACT recently brought to market called ACT365 which is a cloud-based access control solution. That is something we had on our roadmap but it was not very far along in development, so that was a nice add on the technology side.
Just as importantly, we will be able to consolidate our entire R&D for both intrusion, which was in Ireland for us, and access control, which was Sweden-centric. With ACT being in Dublin, we will be able to combine our R&D for both intrusion and access control in the same country and, before too long, even in the same facility and that’s big in terms of creating development synergies moving forward.
Griffin: How do you plan to integrate ACT into Vanderbilt and are there any synergies you can leverage during that process?
Grillo: From the operational side, there are two facilities 20 miles apart with groups of people in them and we will be able to move all of the personnel into a single facility. We’ve got plenty of room in the Vanderbilt facility in Dublin. That’s a big thing from just a cost standpoint. It’s always nice to be able to have a smaller footprint in terms of real estate and all of that.
Product line-wise, we get some new products that we haven’t had like cloud-based solutions. Brand-wise, we will use ACT as a good strong brand name, so there will be some products identified as ACT products but they will be under the Vanderbilt company brand. ACT as a business goes away but ACT as a product line will remain as a separate product brand under the Vanderbilt umbrella.
Griffin: Taken together with your acquisition of Siemens Security Product Business that was finalized last year, do you feel like you’ve rounded out your product line or are there still some gaps you want to fill?
Grillo: Product-wise, I think we are in really good shape. We have everything from small, low-end products to enterprise-scale systems, so I don’t think we’re lacking in anything now. Geographically, we are much, much larger in Europe than in the U.S. and I think that is something we might take a look at going forward because clearly the market potential in the U.S. is significant.
Griffin: You’ve obviously invested heavily in expanding your presence in the European market. Do you feel with these two acquisitions that you have the kind of footprint that you’re looking for there and can your North American customers expect to see any benefits as result of this expansion?
Grillo: In Europe, we now have sales, tech support and customer support in 17 different countries all in local language. Every country in the Nordic region, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Southern Europe, we’ve got offices with people and, again, with local language support. All of the products are available in eight core languages and as many as 10 to 12 languages in terms of the software itself. Some of the products, particularly what we get from ACT, we will bring into the U.S. market where we tend to be very strong in the enterprise market and not so much in the small to medium-sized market sold through wholesale distributors, but now I think we’ve got some products we can bring to the U.S. market (for that segment).
Griffin: What is going to be the growth strategy for Vanderbilt moving forward? Do you plan to continue to improve your market share in Europe or will you be turning your attention to other markets?
Grillo: We now have the opportunity to expand into other geographies organically. Under the Siemens ownership of Siemens Security Products, they were restricted - since the company had been for sale for a number of years - from expanding into the Middle East, South America, Latin America or Asia-Pacific, so I think those are areas we look to potentially grow organically. We’ll also, of course, keep our eye on any strategic acquisition opportunities as well.
