Organic sales growth for the quarter July to September was 4 percent across the Swedish multi-national security contractor Securitas; but only 1pc for Europe, according to the company’s interim results. That compares with organic sales growth of 4 percent for the Security Services North America arm, which covers the United States, Canada and Mexico; where it has 720 branch managers and about 122,000 employees. In North America the operating margin was 6.7 percent, compared with operating margin of 5.9 percent in Europe.
According to the firm, the relatively low sales growth in Europe was due to already reported contract losses in France and in the UK. The results reported the acquisition of the Gloucester-based electronic security installation company Allcooper Group, officially carried out in April. As for the Australian market Securitas has acquired Staysafe, an alarm monitoring company based in Melbourne.
Like previous chief Alf Göransson, Magnus Ahlqvist, President and Chief Executive Officer stresses solutions and technology, partly to offer value; partly to minimise use of human labour. Ahlqvist says: “Labour markets are increasingly challenging in all our geographies, and managing the price and wage balance will remain a key focus this year as well as going into 2020.”
He reports a slow-down in some key markets. He says: “Our ambition is to increase security solutions and electronic security sales, as part of total Group sales, during the coming years. During a time when we see slowing growth in some economies yet upward wage pressure, being able to offer a solution as an alternative to our clients is as important as ever to enhance value to our clients and to manage total cost.”
Security Services Europe has some 770 branch managers and 128,000 employees. Visit https://www.securitas.com/.
