UTC's plans for Red Hawk

FARMINGTON, Conn.--Following the Oct. 2 closing of the acquisition of integration firm Red Hawk Industries (see last month's issue), UTC Fire & Security's president of Security Services America Antonio Cintra expounded upon the company's plans for the 20 additional branches and strong market share in the financial market Red Hawk brings. Also, though UTC was not yet ready to announce by what name the combined integration firm of UTC's Chubb U.S. and Red Hawk will be called, Cintra said he has reorganized his division to capitalize on the Red Hawk acquisition. Cintra said UTC was interested in Red Hawk for four primary reasons. First was Red Hawk's strength in the financial market, which dovetails with Chubb Canada's strength. "We are by far the leader in the financial vertical in Canada," Cintra said. Second was Red Hawk's ability to sell through the entire value chain, from safes to services, in that market. Something Cintra feels only Diebold can also deliver in the United States. Third is the footprint expansion, which moves UTC's integration arm from eight offices mostly in Texas, Washington state and Connecticut to 28 offices covering most of the country. "We're not done yet," Cintra said, "but it's a good base" from which to create a truly national presence. "Growing organically would have simply taken too long," he said. Finally, "UTC likes recurring revenue, and we have good recurring revenue in our Chubb entities in North America and we're looking for businesses that let us build on the service side of our activity. A high percentage of [Red Hawk's] revenue was recurring every month, primarily through their service side." Going forward, former Red Hawk president Greg Johnson will be general manager of Security Services Americas Commercial U.S., heading the combined Chubb U.S. and Red Hawk operations. Ron Sloan will head up Chubb Canada. All residential accounts will be broken out and combined under UTC's monitoring arm, Counterforce, which will be headed by new general manager of Residential North America, Mark Slaughter. UTC also owns Onity, a major player in hospitality locking systems, and Verex, a manufacturer of access control platforms and video servers, both of which are part of Security Services Americas. Lenel, the access control software manufacturer UTC bought in 2005, does not report to Cintra. In the future, Cintra has highlighted the retail and hospitality verticals as areas "we will look to increasingly penetrate." He also said the residential business was growing, and that UTC would look to capitalize on increased offerings through its monitoring business. "Maybe the focus," he said, "is moving more towards the person that is within the house rather than the intrusion piece itself." Further, he hoped to capitalize on UTC's numerous other offerings, everything from elevators to helicopters, in looking at holistic approaches to building and business management opportunities. "I think UTC on the security side of the business has become one of the largest players here in the United States," Cintra said. "I know that when we acquired Red Hawk there was a lot of surprise in the market. People now realize that we're here to stay, and we've become a very viable competitor."