Archive: April 2009

Tyco International today reported second quarter earnings. From the release: Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE: TYC) today reported a loss of $5.40 in diluted earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations for the fiscal second quarter of 2009 and diluted EPS from continuing operations before special items of $0.55 per share. Revenue in the quarter of $4.2 billion declined 15% versus the prior year, mostly due to the impact of the stronger U.S. dollar against foreign currencies. Organic revenue...

Congratulations to Charles S. “Scott” Mandel, president of Asset Protection & Security Services LP, for taking home the Entrepreneurial Success (regional and district winner) award at the Corpus Christie Small Business Association luncheon this week. Unfortunately, Mandel lost out on the Small Business People of the Year Award to the owners of Mr. Fancy Pants. Please also note that the Women in Business Champion was Yvette Maldonado, co-owner of Pete’s Chicken-N-More. Which raises the question:...

After yesterday's rant about the swine flu, of course it would be reported last night that we now have swine flu here in Maine. Baldacci and Dr. Dora Anne Mills of the Maine Center for Disease Control said all three victims are adults who are recovering at home, two from Kennebec County in central Maine and one from York County in the southernmost part of the state. Details were limited. One of those stricken had a "travel history," Mills said. Yikes! I have a "travel history!" I travel all the...

Following up on an earlier story I wrote for SSN, false alarm ordinance compliance efforts in Seattle have been successful, according to a recent press release from SIAC. False alarm dispatches have fallen by 26 percent. That's a good sign that something's working. Earlier in the year when I wrote about the initial compliance push, Seattle PD detective Christopher Hall, false alarm administrator at the SPD, said compliance was not about cracking down. “In 2004, they rewrote the law that basically...

This is tangentially related to the security industry, but ASIS is tracking the swine flu and people do sell flu-detecting cameras, so I figure it's fair game for me. Basically, the mainstream press sucks at reporting about this whole swine flu thing. Sure, it could be a worldwide pandemic, and I'm not underestimating the potential loss of life and general scariness a flu pandemic can really cause, but it's not quite there yet and what we generally have are a bunch of breathless reports that quote...

Monitronics last week announced the winners, selected at random, of the contests it held out of its booth at ISC West this year. Monitronics gave away to Spokane, Wash.-based King Marketing owner/operator Brady Nelson an all expense paid trip to see a UFC match between Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua which took place April 18. Liddell had been a celebrity booth presence for Monitronics at ISC West. [caption id="attachment_1845" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Monitronics...

I just came across this story from the Silicon Valley Mercury News. Looks like another municipality is contemplating getting into the security industry. I wrote a story a while back about another municipality getting into intrusion alarm monitoring. I've got calls out to the appropriate AHJ and will follow up on this story as it develops.

NEWARK, Calif.--GE Security has agreed to sell the majority of its Homeland Protection business to Safran, a French company known mainly in the security industry for its Sagem Securite business. Safran would pay $580 million for 81 percent ownership of the business. GE would retain a 19 percent stake. This is the same piece of GE Security's business that Smiths Detection agreed to buy 65 percent of in 2007 before the deal fell through. Since that time, said GE Security CEO and president Dean Seavers,...

ADT announced Friday that it's providing money and security equipment to Interact Family Safety & Empowerment Center, a new Domestic Violence Resource Center in Raleigh, N.C. Here's the release. ADT's providing access control, panic alarms, video systems and emergency call stations to the center which serves more than 36,000 people, including 6,400 direct victims of crime and their families.

Barron's has upgraded Stanley Works stock from neutral to outperform, using the performance of the security portion of the business as a large part of its reasoning. Here are some of the laudatory remarks: First-quarter results highlight solid execution and we are incrementally positive on Stanley Works' ability to weather the macroeconomic downturn via structural improvement initiatives. Growth and high returns in the security business, early-cycle exposure at CDIY [construction & do-it-yourself],...