Canadian Security: The merger was announced in April. How is the integration of the two companies progressing?

Van Schepen: I think it’s going very well. I think it’s going to be a positive thing for ADT’s business and our business in Canada. I think we’re better together than we were separately and there are some real opportunities to leverage their geographic footprint and for them to leverage some of expertise, whether it’s IP or monitoring.

On the guard side, ADT is absolutely committed to growing our guard business with us. They have a very small guard force here in the GTA and they have some mobile vehicles here and mobile patrol officers. They do outsourced response work in other markets we have business in, mostly in Calgary and Vancouver, so I think we’re going to have opportunities to pick up some of that and bring it in here as we have the critical mass to handle that kind of business more effectively.

CSM: What advantages do you see the merger creating for your existing customers?

Van Schepen: I think it puts us in the hands of a company that is solely focused on security. From a strategic, long-term perspective it’s a more stable ownership structure than being part of First Service was. I think there’s good and bad that comes with the skill that ADT brings but I think the good for our clients is that they are a huge stable company that wants to grow the security business and they like the model we have presented to our customers and they want to expand that.

CSM: I imagine some of your current clients were ADT clients at some time in the past. How are you explaining or marketing the newly merged company to them?

Van Schepen: I visited with a lot of clients after the announcement went out to talk to them about any concerns that they had. The service levels we have are appreciated by our clients and that’s the biggest thing ”“ they don’t want to see us water down the service levels that we have. Certainly that’s not something ADT is going to do. They want to grow this business, not shrink it, so they know that our customers have certain expectations and those commitments need to be met going forward to retain and grow those relationships. So is there concern? Yes, there is always concern, but I was actually surprised that the level of concern was as low as it was. We didn’t have any clients that reacted in a really strong way.