Bell MTS Smart Home service offloaded in alarm deal

BELL MTS’s parent company is selling its home security and monitored alarm branches to an Ontario firm.

On Thursday, BCE Inc. announced it’d sell the assets to a.p.i. Alarm Inc., which markets itself as North America’s largest privately owned full-service security and alarm monitoring company.

Bell MTS’s Smart Home service is part of the deal.

“Customers will experience a seamless transition,” David Marcille, Bell’s senior manager of media relations, wrote in a statement.

The acquisition could close in the latter half of 2025. BCE expects a $90 million transaction with additional proceeds of up to $80 million “contingent on the achievement of certain performance obligations,” a second-quarter shareholder report reads.

All of Bell’s home security and alarm companies, including Bell Aliant’s in Atlantic Canada, will be affected.

Bell pointed to its “ongoing strategy” of focusing on its core telecommunications, enterprise solutions and media businesses as the reason for the sale.

It will keep managing installations, equipment servicing and repairs until Sept. 30. The next day, a.p.i. Alarm Inc. will take over monitoring and servicing. Customers will retain access to their existing apps and portals, Marcille wrote.

“No action is required from customers,” he emphasized.

Billing will transition to a.p.i. Alarm; monthly rates won’t change for two years, Marcille said. A.p.i. Alarm Inc. didn’t respond to interview requests by print deadline.

The home security industry has grown increasingly competitive with the arrival of self-monitoring equipment, said Wenlong Yuan, the University of Manitoba’s Stu Clark Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

“We’ve started to use all these kinds of cameras for monitoring,” he added.

It’s possible BCE wasn’t seeing a sufficient future or profit in the business, leading them to sell, he speculated. Also, services like Bell MTS’s Smart Home diverge from the traditional phone and internet offerings Bell provides, he noted, highlighting BCE’s stated reasoning.

In 2018, BCE purchased AlarmForce Industries — which had more than 100,000 subscribers — for approximately $182 million. A year later, it later sold 30,000 AlarmForce customer accounts to Telus for some $66.5 million.

For a.p.i. Alarm, the new deal is likely a chance to scale, Yuan said. The company began in 1983 and employs between 201 and 500 people, per its LinkedIn page.

BCE’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) declined 0.9 per cent year-over-year this second quarter. Its adjusted EBITDA was $2.67 billion, down from $2.69 billion.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com