An emphasis on doing things the right way has seen EA-RS Group increase its turnover from £6m to £75m in the past ten years alone, helped along the way by a raft of new acquisitions. Yet further expansion is on the cards for the business, which specialises in the supply of intelligent fire and security systems, as Alan Wheal, CEO, recently outlined to Construction Industry News.
“I started out in 1997 as a ‘Man in a Van’ providing electrical contracting services and M&E installations for computer rooms,” explains Mr Wheal. “The hardest aspect back then was getting the fire system to do what we needed it to do, and I therefore started looking at self-delivering the fire systems myself. I subsequently got a team of people together in 1998 and focused on installing fire alarm systems for the industry.”
Becoming an installer proved to be a masterstroke, helping EA-RS to become the biggest company of its type in London. As a consequence, between 1998 and 2008 it installed a million metres of cable a year across various different projects including the likes of Wembley Stadium and the Olympic Stadium, as well as a range of hospitals and large office blocks. It then became involved in the burgeoning hyper-scale data centre market and after transitioning its activities more onto the systems side, between 2013 and the present day it has become a £75m-business by broadening its portfolio of services.
“In 2013 we were installing electrical fire alarms, gas systems and all the electrical systems in-between, such as voice alarm and disabled systems – all for really high-end discipline buildings,” adds Mr Wheal. “We were a premier engineering company working in the highest critical infrastructure you can find in data centres. Due to demand from American data companies that wanted sprinkler systems, we purchased a sprinkler company with all the necessary accreditations. Within a couple of years, we went to £3m in maintenance work.”
EA-RS Group has continued to buy businesses with the same core values of putting the customer first and has purchased one recently, with another acquisition imminent. “Even with these, we’re still only scratching the surface,” says Mr Wheal. “We have two Northern Ireland businesses that are both Top Three in their services. We have the Republic of Ireland to get into with a focus on ensuring that our engineers are all within half an hour of a job. We believe this will take us to between 2,000 and 3,000 people. We are on a mission to expand our services to offer a complete ‘one solution offering’ for our customers, becoming a one-stop shop for all fire and security needs, with national coverage. All of this will be achieved by getting the right people or training the right people.”
“Surefire became our 11th acquisition since February 2021 following the successful acquisitions of CCSS Fire & Security, AST London, UK Fire & Security Doors, Crane Communications, Firesec Compliance, Air Projects, Essex Fire Sprinklers, Vulcan Fire, Positive Controls and APW Fire Protection. We’re in no mood to stop there either, as we are continuing our expansion drive backed by Rockpool Investments and RCL Partners, with both investors providing capital to deploy into the our buy and build strategy. This is based on both geographical and system type. We’re also very strong on recruitment and staff development internally. We want to continue evolving the business to give one solution for the marketplace and further consolidate the UK fire and security market.”
Given the progress it has made in recent years, EA-RS Group looks well set to achieve these objectives and much, much more.
