For $1.8 billion, Fairfield-based General Electric Co. is selling its security products division to United Technologies Corp., which will add the unit to its UTC Fire & Security division.
GE Security is based in Bradenton, Fla., and sells a wide range of security and safety systems, from home fire alarms to scanners for use at airports and ports. The unit employs 4,700 people in 26 countries.
GE Security also has a facility in Newtown via its 2003 acquisition of International Fiber Systems, a vendor of fiber-optic products for use in security applications.
Farmington-based UTC Fire & Security brands include Chubb, Kidde, and Lenel. UTC”™s corporate headquarters is Hartford.
In a stock deal valued at up to $20 million, Lake Capital sold its controlling stake in Stamford-based Archstone Consulting L.L.C. to The Hackett Group Inc., a Miami-based consultancy, with the companies planning an unspecified number of job cuts as a result of the merger.
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Archstone consults on strategy and operations in multiple industries, including consumer products, retail, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals. The company has about 130 employees, including 75 in Stamford at last report. Including severance and other integration costs, Hackett Group plans to take a charge against earnings of between $3 million and $4 million. Through the first three quarters of the year, Hackett Group had a $1.8 million profit despite a 25 percent drop in revenue to $143 million; it expects Archstone to produce between $35 million and $40 million in revenue next year.
Hackett will issue up to 5.2 million shares of stock for Archstone, depending on post-merger milestones the companies achieve, not including additional shares due executives of Archstone, which is led by President-CEO Todd Lavieri.
Greenwich-based Mill Road Capital L.P. is taking a Canadian marketing and communications agency ranked last year by Advertising Age as one of the 25 largest in the world, in a $132 million transaction.
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Québec City-based Cossette Inc. has nearly 1,500 employees, including at an office in New York City. In the third quarter, the company lost $17.4 million as revenue dropped 23 percent to $49 million.
The company had been fending off a “creeping takeover” bid by Cosmos Capital Inc.
Mill Road bills itself as a “Berkshire Hathaway for small companies,” focusing on investments in high-quality companies with less than $250 million in annual revenue. The firm”™s senior managing director is Thomas Lynch, who previously was an investor with Lazard Capital Partners and Blackstone Group, and who began his career in the advertising industry at Interpublic Group of Companies.
Mitchells, a family-owned department store company based in Westport, is negotiating to acquire the bankrupt Wilkes Bashford Co., a high-end clothing outfit based in San Francisco.
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Mitchells has offered $4.6 million for Wilkes Bashford, which owns a store in San Francisco”™s Union Square and in Palo Alto, Calif. The company has closed stores in the California towns of Carmel and Mill Valley this year.
In addition to the Mitchells department store in Westport, Mitchell”™s owns Richard”™s in Greenwich and Marsh”™s in Huntington, N.Y.
