World's security company "Group 4 Securicor" bought 85% of stocks of Serbian security company "Progard"

Global security company "Group 4 Securior" has purchased 85% of stocks of Serbian security company "Progard".

The CEO of "Progard", Aleksandar Kozlica, could not announce the value of the signed sales contract at the press conference today (May 20, 2008) because, as he pointed out, "he had to wait for the report from the Antimonopoly Commission".

He added that the presence of company "G4S" was very significant to Serbia because that would enable application of the world’s modern technology in field of security.

- By purchasing the control package of stocks of "Progard, "G4S" will also introduce new trends in education of the generations of personnel in the security industry who do not have any military or police experience - said Kozlica.

The CEO of "G4S" for Serbia, Dragiša Marinković, said that that company was present in Serbia for about one year and that it owned 75% of stocks of company "DMD" where about 1,000 people work.

Marinković announced that "G4S" in Serbia would be hiring new workers, but he did not specify the number of the people who would get jobs.

He pointed out that Serbia should pass the Law on physical-technical security as soon as possible because it was the only country in the region without legal framework for the security industry.

According to the words of the representative of "Progard", there are about 3,160 companies in Serbia that are registered for providing security services and the price of services amount to about 2 EUR per hour, while the price per hour in Slovenia exceeds 10 EUR.

According to the announcement of company "G4S", that company has more than 530,000 workers in about 10 countries and annual turnover in amount of about 4 billion GBP. The company is present on the London Stock Exchange and on the stock exchange in Kopenhagen.

The clients of "G4S" are: military academy West Point and Pentagon, all German military institutions, 32 nuclear plants in the USA, embassies to 32 countries, oil pipeline in Kazakhstan, and the Olympics in Athens.

Company "Progard" was founded in 1992 under the name of "Protektor", and it changed the name into the current one in 1997. The company has about 3,000 employees who provide services of physical and mobile security, monitoring, services of transportation of values and money, fire protection services, as well as estimate of risk and analysis of security.