AMETEK (NYSE: AME), a global manufacturer of electronic instruments/electromechanical devices and owner of power management provider SurgeX, is acquiring wireless-communications, security, logistics-management and IoT provider Telular Corp. for approximately $525 million.
Telular, which owns the SHaaS (smart home as a service) provider Telguard, is a long-time leader in cellular communications, providing devices and services for cloud-enabling alarm panels, oilfields, fleets, industrial tanks and anything else that requires remote monitoring without the benefit of a local network.
Telguard in particular offers cellular communicators, home-automation hubs and back-end services for security dealers to provide interactive smart-home services alongside professional alarm monitoring. The company competes with Alarm.com, Napco (iBridge), Honeywell (Total Connect), Alula, SecureNet and a handful of other popular cellular and SHaaS providers.
Chicago-based Telular, with annual sales of approximately $165 million, earns revenue from hardware, proprietary software, and wireless connectivity services that enhance the efficiency and safety of critical assets.
During an earnings call with investors on Nov. 1, AMETEK CEO David Zapico said 65-percent of Telular’s sales are generated from its recurring subscription-based business. Telular’s sales are expected to continue to grow at a roughly 10 percent annual rate, as adoption of its IoT-based communications solutions are still in the early stages.
Zapico described Telular as “very profitable, mid-20s EBITDA with room for margin expansion.” AMETEK will look to leverage cost synergy opportunities, with opportunities to expand the business internationally.
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“In addition to the strength of the Telular business, we see tremendous value and leveraging their IoT capabilities across other AMETEK businesses. Our highly differentiated measurement instrumentation and domain expertise in our niche markets combined with Telular’s IoT platform forms the core of an expanded digital strategy for AMETEK and opens up attractive growth opportunities for our businesses,” Zapico said.
Zapico went on to explain he expects to leverage the Telular platform across other AMETEK businesses, “where we currently collect, measure and analyze important process variables across mission-critical applications.”
In other words, Ametek sees an opportunity to apply the Telular and Telguard engines to the company's vast arsenal of electronic instruments, potentially earning recurring revenue by providing intelligence and alerts based on raw data collected from the field.
Interestingly, Telular could incorporate SurgeX's network-enabled surge protection and power management products into Telguard's SHaaS platform, adding a new category for remote monitoring that is highly complementary to the alarm and smart-home devices Telguard already supports.
Concurrent to the Telular acquisition, AMETEK announced it also purchased Forza Silicon Corp., a manufacturer of high-performance imaging sensors used in medical, defense, commercial and industrial applications. Forza Silicon, based in Pasadena, Calif., was purchased for approximately $40 million.
As with Telular, Forza Silicon will be integrated into AMETEK’s Electronic Instruments Group (EIG). AMETEK reports annualized sales of approximately $4.8 billion.
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