Guard Services
Guard companies provide contract security officers for sites, buildings, and events, usually billed by the hour under service contracts. It is a labor-intensive business with thinner margins than the alarm trades, so value depends on contract retention, the spread between bill rates and wages, and how concentrated the client base is. Victor advises guard company owners on sales and helps buyers assess the contract base and the operation.
About Guard Services
Guard companies are valued on earnings, and because margins are thin the quality of the contracts matters more than the headline revenue. Buyers look at the spread between what the company bills and what it pays its officers, how that spread holds up when wages rise, the length and cancellation terms of client contracts, client concentration, officer turnover, and whether the company carries the right licensing in each jurisdiction where it operates. Overtime, workers compensation costs, and unbilled hours can quietly erode margin, so Victor helps owners show a clean and defensible margin picture and helps buyers understand what the contract base will actually be worth once they take it over.
Valued on a multiple of EBITDA, lower than recurring-revenue alarm businesses because of thinner margins.
Selected transactions
Gardwell Security Agency Inc.
Harding represented Gardwell Security Agency, a long-running Toronto guard company, in the sale of its contracts to Lion Guard Corp. as the owner retired.
Windsor Security
Harding advised the owner of Windsor Security in Surrey, British Columbia, on the sale of its combined security and guard business to Prices Alarms.