This blog’s on fire

Got a notice today from Protection One that they’ve hired a new general counsel, P.Gray Finney. Finney’s been in private practice in Georgia for a while, but guess where he used to work?
If you guessed ADT, you’re right.
We’ve never met in person, but I’ve spoken to P. Gray many times on the phone, and [...]

A patent lawsuit, dating back to 2006, filed by Paradox Security Systems of Montreal originally against ADT and DSC and eventually also including Protection One and Monitronics appears to have been put to rest.
Here’s a very convoluted legalese-ridden take on the recent judgment from leagle.com.
Not easy to figure out what happened from that [...]

I mentioned in my May 27 blog post that a senior ADT sales executive had joined Protection One and wondered about Tim Whall’s plans for the sales operation.
I wasn’t naming any names, since I haven’t had a chance yet to meet or talk to the executive in question and didn’t have any official confirmation about [...]

I’m going to miss Pro One being public.
Sure, I know, when it’s a public company the management always has to be super careful about what they can and cannot say. That’s a pain for reporter and management alike; I won’t miss that.
It’s the SEC filings I’m gonna miss!
Who knew–certainly not me—what a [...]

According to PE Hub’s Dan Primack, not bad.
From his blog:
So, the total Quadrangle investment was $115 million, and it stands to pocket more than $182 million from the sale to GTCR. A source familiar with the situation puts Quadrangle’s IRR at around 38 percent. Not stratospheric, but pretty damn good for what has effectively been [...]

The announcement just came out, private equity group, GTCR is all set to buy Pro One.
Does GTCR sound familiar? They were the money guys behind the 2004 purchase of Honeywell Security Monitoring in 2004. That’s Jim Covert’s HSM, which was sold to Stanley for that record-breaking multiple in Jan. of 2007.
As Sam just said [...]

Citing a “source familiar with the situation,” Rueters is reporting today that final bids are due by the end of the day for anyone interested in buying Protection One. The story says a “handful” of PE and strategic buyers are expected to submit bids.
I emailed Pro One for comment, and just heard back [...]

Quadrangle, a majority owner of Protection One was in the news today. More on this later, Dan Primack at PEHub is all over the story. Here’s the guts of the story:
The Quadrangle Group this morning settled with New York State over its role in the pay-to-play scandal, agreeing to repay $7 million. Of more [...]

One of my favorite readers sent Sam a link to this gem. It’s from a column in a publication called The Consumerist. The Consumerist helps out consumers with problems.
This consumer has a security problem: He bought a new house with an existing Protection One security system, but he doesn’t have the code. He doesn’t [...]

Did you see Pro One in the New York Times yesterday? If you looked closely at the full-page iPhone advertisement “New Year, New resolutions, New Apps,” on the back page of the front section you did.
The ad featured 16 of the iPhone’s coolest apps, and Protection One’s free e-Secure app is one of [...]