At the beginning of the second quarter of 2019, two major security players, Panasonic and Pelco, announced alliances with private equity funds.
Transom Capital Group acquired Pelco in its entirety as part of a continued effort to grow its digital business.
The Polaris Private Equity Fund acquired 80 percent of Panasonic’s newly formed security business spin-off, Panasonic i-PRO Sensing Solutions Co Ltd. According to an announcement from Polaris Capital Group, the new company will focus on promoting its security solutions business and expanding R&D for machine vision for industrial and medical applications.
If we review the acquisition history in the video surveillance sector, companies that were industry pioneers or market leaders, such as
Sony,
Axis,
Hanwha Techwin,
Avigilon,
VIVOTEK,
Milestone,
Mobotix,
Tyco Security Products (now Johnson Controls), Nice Systems (now the Battery Ventures-owned
Qognify), and
Arecont Vision Costar, have all become individual companies under multiple international conglomerates.
Bosch Security Systems and
Honeywell Security are in the process of being fully integrated in their own building solution business sector.
Interestingly, if you look at
a&s Security 50 ranking, Chinese companies have all become more self-sufficient in recent years.
Hikvision and
Dahua are two particular examples. The pair have surpassed all of their competitors to become dominant in the industry. Several of other Chinese companies also grew big via IPOs.
The decline of historically well-known brands and the rise of Chinese companies explains a lot about the ups and downs in the videos surveillance sector. But it does leave one wondering if the U.S.-China Trade War and the U.S.’s recent bans on some Chinese brands will change the current industry landscape.