Integration News
Stanley buys Ottawa-based Xmark

The deal consists of a $45 million agreed purchase price plus a balance
sheet adjustment of approximately $3 million (a portion of which
reflects the net cash position of Xmark as of the closing).

Xmark, whose headquarters and principal operations are located in
Ottawa, develops, markets and sells RFID-based systems used to
identify, locate and protect people and assets.

Xmark’s infant protection system, Hugs, was installed last year at the
new Brampton Civic Hospital in Brampton, Ont. The system ensures full
supervision of all components, including the tag, with each tag sending
a “Heartbeat” status message every 10 seconds. If the system doesn’t
receive these messages for a specified time period, an alarm is
automatically generated. If someone attempts to cut the tag, an alarm
is sounded and the system will show where the nearest receiver is
located.
Stanley has been active in the long-term care portion of the
health-care market. The acquisition of Bed-Check in June of 2007
coupled with the recent acquisition of Xmark adds to the company’s
interest in the health-care field.

The purchase of Xmark expands the existing Stanley Senior Technologies
business, said Todd Tyler, director, engineering and product management
with the company.
“Not only will we expand our existing long term care customer base with
the addition of the RoamAlert product, we will gain significant scale
in hospitals with the infant protections systems of Hugs and Halo.”

Tyler said that Xmark will report operationally through the Senior
Technologies business unit and the lease on the office building in
Ottawa will be renewed. When asked if there would be any elimination of
staff at the Xmark office in Ottawa, Tyler said, “With any acquisition
there will need to be rationalization of resources.”
There are several business units of Stanley Security Solutions that
have RFID solutions, ranging from human and physical asset tracking to
cash tracking to security access control. Stanley Senior Technologies
has been an RFID based company since its inception in 1985.

Stanley has also recently completed the purchase of Sonitrol Corp. from
an ownership group comprised of Carlyle Venture Partners, Wachovia
Capital Partners and Spire Capital Partners as well as selected members
of Sonitrol management for US$276 million cash. Sonitrol, headquartered
in Berwyn, Penn., provides security monitoring services, access control
and fire detection systems to commercial customers in North America via
two monitoring centres and a national multi-channel distribution
network.