Buying a fire and security company in South Florida

• Monitoring and inspection contracts that make up a large share of revenue, with few cancellations. Buyers pay most for this part.
• Inspection findings turned into repair jobs, quoted and done before the customer calls someone else.
• Commercial customers spread across many buildings and property managers, so losing one doesn't hurt much.
• Technicians with the right state credentials and the industry certifications that inspections require.
• Monitoring contracts that can pass to a new owner, with a reliable monitoring center behind them.
• Careful estimates on project work, and little reliance on one general contractor.
• Inspection and service records in software, showing every building's schedule and history.

• Monitoring accounts and inspection contracts in detail: value, terms and cancellations over three years.
• Whether the contracts can be transferred to you. That may depend on whether you buy the company itself or only its assets.
• The monitoring center agreement: cost per account, and who owns the customer relationship.
• Deficiencies (problems found during inspections) not yet repaired, and any liability if a system failed.
• Claims or lawsuits after fires or break-ins.
• Who holds each license and certificate, and whether they'll stay.
• Background checks and training records for every alarm employee, since gaps are a licensing problem for the company.
• Older alarm panels that report over phone lines or cellular networks that carriers have shut down.

• How much of your revenue comes from monitoring and inspections, and how has that grown?
• How many monitoring accounts and inspection contracts do you have, and on what terms?
• Who monitors your accounts, and could that agreement pass to a new owner?
• Whose licenses and certificates does the company work under?
• How many problems from recent inspections are still waiting on repairs?
• How much of your work is new systems bid through general contractors?
• Have you ever been sued after a system didn't work as expected?

South Florida covers Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties: Miami, Hialeah, Doral, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Jupiter, and the Florida Keys down to Key West. It's the state's largest metro area and its most international. PortMiami, Port Everglades and Miami International Airport tie the region to Latin America and the Caribbean, which supports a deep base of wholesalers, freight forwarders and logistics firms, many of them near the airport. Tourism and cruises, finance and wealth management, health care, real estate and construction carry much of the rest. Palm Beach County adds wealthy seasonal residents and, out west near Lake Okeechobee, sugarcane and vegetable farms. In the Keys, nearly everything turns on visitors, fishing and boating.

Companies that serve homes, condo buildings and other businesses do well here: the building trades, property services, insurance agencies, medical and dental practices, and professional firms.

Costs run high: commercial rent, wages and, above all, property and windstorm insurance. Price the insurance before you make an offer, not after. Miami-Dade and Broward make up the Florida Building Code's High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, with stricter rules for roofs, windows and structures. That raises building costs, and it also gives steady work to the contractors who know those rules well.

Much of the workforce and many customers speak Spanish as well as English, and a company that works well in both languages has an edge. The winter season matters more in Palm Beach County and the Keys than in Miami. In the Keys, the cost of housing makes hiring and keeping staff one of the hardest parts of running a company. Ask any seller there how they find workers and where those workers live.