Avigilon Admits Contacting 70 Bidders

No need to justify. The subscribers know your source is not a security guard sleeping at the front desk.

There was a lot of smoke before the fire on this one.

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Undisclosed Integrator #1

•Mar 01, 2018

Great Topic. Great insight. I for one, am not planning to cancel my subscription any time. Keep up the good work.

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John Honovich

IPVM

One other thing to mention since it may not be clear why they are disclosing this now.

The reason is there is a March 22nd meeting to vote on the deal and the board itself only owns / controls 12% of the shares. They need to make sure they get enough votes to approve the deal.

If they already had the votes, it would be unlikely they would disclose such details, given the sensitive information revealed. But explaining the 70 to 11 to 2 to none to Motorola path should help some shareholders be more confident this is the best deal they are going to get.

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John Honovich

IPVM

Financial details on Avigilon's founder's retirement:

So $5.4 million one time payment plus $5,000 per half day in consulting payments when needed. 2-year non-compete and non-solicitation.

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Undisclosed Manufacturer #6

Man, like Forbes said years ago in their article "The Fleecing of America", becoming a CEO of a big company is like hitting the lottery.

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John Honovich

In reply to Undisclosed Manufacturer #6

IPVM

#6, Fernandes is due credit. He founded the company which is different and much riskier than the average Fortune 500 company CEO who gets paid tens of millions regardless of what happens to the company.

And in Fernandes case, he bet on megapixel when most other people were betting on analytics, and not only was he right his strategy and execution were a lot better than his peers at IQinVision and Arecont Vision.

As for the one-time $5.4 million payment, I don't totally understand what that is for, so I cannot opine on its fairness or appropriateness.

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Undisclosed Manufacturer #6

You're right, sometimes it's a matter of perspective. It is far from the worst we've seen in the news. At least it was and still is a successful company.

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Undisclosed Integrator #3

We have been talking with the Avigilon Sales Rep for our area after getting pulled into a bid for their system nearby. We were very close on our number but the client chose another experienced Avigilon firm to install the system, the same who did their other facilities in North America. I'm neither surprised or upset. I don't think the time wasted.

We have had another conversation with him since the story was reported elsewhere and he says they are still interested in us as are we in them. I am attempting to remain optimistic. We as a company do not have much experience with larger IVMS installs but we're learning and have several large opportunities as well as potential vendors.

My subscription will remain active as long as I continue to gain insight and advantages as we move forward with our agenda to increase RMR and offer state of the art video and access control with quality partners. IPVM is worth the investment.

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Undisclosed Integrator #2

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #3

My subscription will remain active as long as I continue to gain insight and advantages as we move forward with our agenda to increase RMR and offer state of the art video and access control with quality partners. IPVM is worth the investment.

Can we please not make the IPVM membership stance in your footer a thing*?

*I will keep my IPVM membership active as long as my employers don't realize I am on here.

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Undisclosed Integrator #3

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #2

My employers know I am here. I am the sales manager. I am using all available industry data to move us forward in the right and profitable direction. I am undisclosed for other reasons involving competitors, not the owner, who is my boss and hired me to bring better ideas and strategy to move us FORWARD!

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Undisclosed #4

IPVMU Certified

One of the Avigilon dealers strongest pushbacks in the 2016 / 2017 time frame was that they knew and trusted their salespeople and that their salespeople would tell them if a sale was happening. Obviously, not.

One wonders what Avigilon would have said if they were asked officially...

Related: Milestone Admits IPO Plan Lie

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Undisclosed #5

In reply to Undisclosed #4

I don't think there is much wonder. They would have denied any acquisition in the works. Given that they could not find a buyer until Motorola approached them, they would not have been lying either.

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John Honovich

In reply to Undisclosed #5

IPVM

They would have denied any acquisition in the works. Given that they could not find a buyer until Motorola approached them, they would not have been lying either.

The trickier part would have been denying that negotiations were occurring. The disclosure does show it was a formal 'sales process' and not just simply responding to inbound requests.

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Undisclosed #4

IPVMU Certified

The trickier part would have been denying that negotiations were occurring.

That’s where the non-denial denial can really show its worth ;)

In the realm of ethical choices, being evasive about selling ones company is a relatively easy decision to make, since:

1) Admitting to it could adversly affect the outcome

2) If the deal falls thru, typically no one knows because of NDA’s

3) If it succeeds, its payday, so...

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Undisclosed Manufacturer #7

In reply to Undisclosed #4

Who knows/knew if AVIGILON Sales people had that knowledge? I for one think they didn't know until such time the announcement was made re Motorola.

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Undisclosed Integrator #1

In reply to Undisclosed Manufacturer #7

Of course Avigilon Sales people had NO idea of any transaction. They’d be “ the 10th man on the deal team and the last ones to know”.

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Undisclosed #5

In reply to Undisclosed Manufacturer #7

That would be par for the course for Avigilon. The company has a strong culture of keeping information compartmentalized, and in general does not share a lot with the sales team well ahead of the data being generally available.

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Undisclosed Integrator #1

In reply to Undisclosed #5

I am certain that in all organizations involved with a transaction such as Avigilon is currently engaged in, the personnel who are not on a "need to know basis" don't know. End of discussion.

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John Honovich

•Mar 06, 2018

IPVM

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1

End of discussion.

Case closed with prejudice ;)

But, yes, 'need to know' is definitely applicable here.

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John Honovich

IPVM

Btw, evidently the internal code name for the deal was 'Project Magnum' as the title of the report and a second reference indicates:

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Undisclosed #5

Considering how they struggled to inflate the stock price and trim some surrounding items to make it look bigger, Operation Blue Pill would have been more appropriate.

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Paul Grefenstette

I'm curious who the other 2 were before Moto came in.

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John Honovich

In reply to Paul Grefenstette

IPVM

I am not certain of that. I am positive a number of the major industry manufacturers were in the round of 11 but not sure who the final 2 were.

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David Coughlin

Protection One / ADT

At first, I was thinking this was a story about how many integrators Avigilon contacts to show up at at bid walkthroughs.

That noted, great article with some rare insights into the acquisition process.

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Undisclosed #5

In reply to David Coughlin

At first, I was thinking this was a story about how many integrators Avigilon contacts to show up at at bid walkthroughs.

Me too, mostly because I did not think there could possibly be 70 eligible bidders when it came to selling the company. Some of those 70 must have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel. I wonder what Longse bid?

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John Honovich

In reply to Undisclosed #5

IPVM

Some of those 70 must have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel. I wonder what Longse bid?

Ouch. I know you are joking but I suspect it was the opposite. Morgan Stanely probably reached out to lots of huge companies just in the hope that one would bite - Google, IBM, Oracle, Facebook, Fujitsu, Konica Minolta, Canon :) etc....

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Undisclosed Manufacturer #6

...HP, Dell, Goldman Sachs...

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Undisclosed #4

IPVMU Certified