Acquisition in hand, Cooper Notification is born

HOUSTON—CooperWheelock is now officially Cooper Notification. Jon Safran, director of investor relations for parent company Cooper Industries, confirmed the news on Jan. 22. The rebranding has been underway for several months. Cooper’s signage at ISC East in September even had the Cooper Notification name. However, the process was topped off, Safran said, with the Dec. 26 acquisition of Roam Secure, a company that does text-based alerting systems. Roam Secure “completes the package so we can offer an all-in-one solution from one provider,” Safran said. The acquisition enables Cooper Notification to “scale up or down the solution, according to the customer direction.” The Roam Secure deal was part of a three-acquisition package announced Dec. 26. (The other two businesses acquired on Dec. 26 pertain to other Cooper Industries’ business units.) Cooper Industries paid a total of $100 million for the three companies, whose total 2007 sales were $62 million. Asked about the terms of the Roam Secure deal, Safran said Cooper Industries was not “selectively disclosing” the sales figures and price paid for the individual companies. He did say, “Roam Secure is the smallest [in size and price] of the three.” Cooper Industries began building what would eventually become Cooper Notification in February 2006, when it acquired Wheelock, a New Jersey-based manufacturer of fire and emergency incident communications systems and devices. In May of 2007, CooperWheelock acquired MadahCom, a manufacturer of wireless emergency control and mass notification systems (for background, search “CooperWheelock” at www.securitysystemsnews.com). Safran noted that Wheelock, MadahCom and Roam Secure have different customer bases. “Historically, Wheelock was in the commercial and industrial market, MadahCom did military and growing commercial, and Roam Secure is more in municipal government, state government and educational campuses.” Cooper Notification will be able to reach all of these verticals with its “full holistic solution,” he said. Cooper Notification is part of Cooper Industries’ fire and security division, called Cooper Menvier. Based in the U.K., Cooper Menvier does about $450 million in business annually. This division is undergoing its own rebranding, Safran said. Cooper Menvier will be known as Cooper Safety at some point in the future; that rebranding is “happening now,” Safran said.