INTELLIGENT MONITORING GROUP LTD (IMB) - How IMG Is Building A One-Stop Security Partner Across Australia And New Zealand Artwork

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INTELLIGENT MONITORING GROUP LTD (IMB) - How IMG Is Building A One-Stop Security Partner Across Australia And New Zealand

June 17, 2026 • Andrew Musgrave

0:00 | 17:11

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A security monitoring business doesn’t grow a $63.2m secured installation pipeline by accident, so we sat down with Dennison Hambling, Managing Director of Intelligent Monitoring Group (IMG), to understand what’s really driving the momentum. We talk candidly about why large enterprises across Australia and New Zealand are increasingly choosing a single national provider for electronic security, fire protection, and monitoring, and how IMG is rebuilding that “one trusted partner” position as the industry stays highly fragmented.

We dig into the numbers behind the story, including operating cash flow and what Dennison calls improving earnings quality, plus the seasonality that can make quarter-to-quarter comparisons tricky. Dennison also shares how the company’s balance sheet journey and legacy tax losses influence capital allocation, and why he wants dividends to be sustainable when they arrive, not just symbolic.

A big segment focuses on the completed acquisition of Blue Sky Hold Co, including Wormald New Zealand (Tyco NZ) and Red Wolf Security. We unpack what these businesses do, how they strengthen IMG’s New Zealand footprint to more than 500 people across 12 locations, and why national coverage matters when serving government and large multi-site customers. We also explore why prior alignment within the Johnson Controls ecosystem can reduce integration risk and simplify the transition.

Then we zoom out to the technology shift: Video Guard and AI-powered video monitoring. Dennison explains how “threat assessment” changes the old alarm response model, why New Zealand is earlier in adoption than Australia, and how monitored video can expand the addressable market by competing with guarding and patrols while making real security more affordable.

If you care about security industry trends, ASX growth stories, or the practical realities of scaling a services business across Australasia, hit play now. Subscribe, share the episode with a mate, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Andrew Musgrave

Welcome again to ASX Briefs. And today we welcome back Dennison Hambling, the Managing Director of Intelligent Monitoring Group Limited, Australasia's leading technology-driven security and life safety monitoring company, providing security monitoring, fire protection, and AI-powered video guarding services across Australia and New Zealand. Dennison, welcome back and thanks for joining me again on the ASX Briefs podcast.

Dennison Hambling

Thank you. Nice to be here.

Andrew Musgrave

Now, Dennison, Q3 has been a big quarter for you. So, your secured installation pipeline has grown from 36.6 million in Q1 to 49.8 million in Q2 and now sits at 63.2 million at the end of Q3. That's two consecutive quarters of 25% plus growth. So, what's driving that acceleration?

Dennison Hambling

Yeah, no, look, it's a great result. And I think what it really speaks to, Andrew, is if you step back in the IMG journey, our strategy has been to create a national level provider of high-quality electronic security services. And that to us was a gap, a real gap in the market that had opened up over many years as the large companies had sort of largely exited New Zealand and the industry had fragmented. What it had opened up was that if you're a large corporate or enterprise in Australia, and same in New Zealand, there were very few people you could go to as a one-stop shop. And so, what's really driving that is our engagement with large, you know, top 50, top 200 plus enterprises who are looking for one direct point of contact to derive all their electronic security solutions, and what is a more and more sort of technologically advanced area. So, what it what it represents is the strategy that we were looking to put in place when we bought the ADT AU and New Zealand business in 2023, starting to really bite in now with our existing, largely existing customers, but also with new customers coming to us, looking to work with us.

Andrew Musgrave

And operating cash flow came in at 7.7 million for the quarter, up 14.5% on the same period last year. So how would you characterize the underlying earnings quality of the business right now?

Dennison Hambling

No, look at the quality of both the cash flows, the earnings, and or the business are just getting better and better. And so, you know, I do have to remind people that five years ago when I started this journey, sort of four years ago when I became MD, and then three years ago and bought ADT, there's been a lot of turnaround kind of behaviour to build the IMG enterprise that we have today. And so, the quality has you know been on a journey of improvement and improvement, and now it is very clean. And so, we're happy to see that. I do also make the point though that you know we do have a little bit of variability in our quarterly-to-quarterly cash flows. First quarter is our always our weakest, fourth quarter is our strongest, and second and third are sort of line ball about business as usual. And so, you know, it's growing and it's growing period on period versus PCP, but it's also following the usual sort of I guess seasonal trends.

Andrew Musgrave

You've also got cash in the bank at just over $38m. So, with the Tyco NZ acquisition now funded and completing, how are you thinking about the balance sheet and capital allocation going into FY27

Dennison Hambling

Yeah, so we you know, we've been on a journey again, you know, going back from like an infinity level of debt leverage ratio five years ago to now being down in the 1.6 times net EBITDA, but of effectively de-gearing down to become an investment grade, you know, triple A type credit, certainly from a balance sheet point of view, but also for our customers who are looking for that strong counterparty. We've reached that level and the business is you know cash very cash generative now on a full-year basis moving forward. I think as we've come out of that journey, we haven't had we've had a lot of tax losses because of the journey the enterprise and the organization, even pre-dating me, had had. We're burning those off, which doesn't put us in a good place yet for dividends. So, in terms of capital allocation moving forward, we are a little paused here while we just assess you know the business and we're at, there is still a lot of incremental sort of opportunity. We're not necessarily looking for MA, we don't need it so much strategically now, but it is actually a feature of our markets that they're incredibly fragmented with very old, aging you know, businesses you know, looking for a you know strong counterparty to take them over and own them. So, we're really just sort of sitting here, assessing, you know, where we go from here, noting that the growth, the goal of the business and the enterprise and the board and hopefully shareholders is to return a really good level of total return. So, I think as we look forward, I'd certainly like to start to see dividends myself as a shareholder. But you know, we're going to have to just get it, we've got a little bit probably of time to go before in a position to really get into a strong process policy. What I want to see when we get there is it's sustainable. And so, everything we're doing is about building an enduring, sustainable business. And you know, when we start to you know build our capital plans, which we will consider over the course of this through this 27 year, we'll do it in a way where you know hopefully we will, you know, people will be able to rely upon it and also build their own wealth off the back of us building that over time.

Andrew Musgrave

And touching on the growth, you’ve referenced consistent organic growth of around 8% across the past three halves. What’s underpinning that – is it new customer wins, contract renewals, expanded service scope, or a mix of the three?

Dennison Hambling

It's a little mixed, but if I had to pick one, it's really more work for existing customers. So, you know, we are clearly you know winning new customers, but it's also the case we're now having that national coverage with our own people and high-quality people, you know, doing really great work at the sort of the edge of technology and what we can offer with electronic security. Our customers are extending you know their footprints, extending us into their footprints and then extending the conversations around what they could do. So, if I was to pick one in particular, it's really expanding our work with existing customers and what we offer them. I think secondary is we do get inbound you know calls from large enterprises where we are you know picking up work, starting to do work and building our you know our what was once proud reputation with ADT back to a full market level. So I think what we expect and hope for is that that 8% is a sort of a good floor level of growth, and certainly with that growth in the pipeline that you mentioned earlier, that indicates that you know we would expect to see over coming periods that growth rate start to lift further and we just want to make sure that it's really maintainable and sustainable and you know, and we're seeing that.

Andrew Musgrave

Looking now at the acquisition of Blue Sky Holdco comprising Tyco NZ and Red Wolf Security, which is now completed. So, for listeners unfamiliar with these businesses, what do they do and why were they the right fit for IMG?

Dennison Hambling

Yeah, so really proud to let you know that what we've had to refer to in the acquisition as Tyco New Zealand is actually called Wormald New Zealand. And so Wormald's a hundred-year plus enterprise in Australasia. Now we own the New Zealand part, not the Australian part and it's a fire service business which is just an incredible pedigree and probably about 28% share of all buildings, commercial buildings in New Zealand, do they look after, monitor, and service the fire systems? What we were trying to do there is essentially replicate that successful strategy that we put in place in Australia around commercial and enterprise. And so, by having really stacking our IMG group in New Zealand with you know the leading fire player, Red Wolf is the lead is a leading high security business, which is a class of security which is really think government defence, it's another level again of electronic security above the standard sort of commercial systems. We're trying to put in place that same reputation that has seen that pipeline kind of growth that we've seen in Australia. And when we just had the ADT New Zealand business, it was a broad business, but not a particularly deep business. So, it really had three business lines. This allows us to skew heavily to be you know commercially enterprise focused and look to get those organizations working across themselves. They are related, they all were at one point in time owned by JCI. They're all sort of familiar to each other, but they haven't been in an environment where they've probably been as free to work together for mutual benefit as they are now. So, we are you know genuinely really excited about our footprint now in New Zealand. It's about 30% of our business after this, and we see a lot of opportunity to begin to see the journey that we've seen in Australia, which is what is really pulling our business along at the moment.

Andrew Musgrave

And the acquisition adds more than 300 staff in 12 branch locations, taking IMG's New Zealand headcount to over 500. So, how significant is this in terms of scale and market positioning in New Zealand?

Dennison Hambling

Yeah, well, it would definitely make us one of, if not the single largest organizations in the fire and security space. There are there are really not many that cross both actually anymore. I can think of one you know global name, but I suspect would be smaller than us. I mean in a New Zealand context, what it means is like Australia now, we cover the entire country. So, when it comes to dealing with government, whether that's Ministry of Education or Ministry of Foreign Affairs or what they call MSD, which is equivalent to Services Australia in Australia, and Centrelink, you know, we are able to provide that service and uniquely placed. So, it gives us it gives us we think a competitive advantage from a scale and positioning point of view, and still though quite a low share. One thing that surprises people, I think, certainly surprised me when I join the industry is the scale and size of these industries. And so electronic security, fire, you know, there are a lot of employees. And I think if you if you drive the streets for anyone listening tonight, see if you can see a security van or a fire van, fire protection van, and you'll start to realize that you'll see a lot of them, which represents how fragmented this market is and how you know we have now moved into a leadership position, but that's still a relatively low share of these industries.

Andrew Musgrave

You've highlighted that Tyco NZ's historic alignment within the Johnson Controls ecosystem alongside ADT makes for a low-risk integration. So, can you explain why that heritage matters for how you're approaching the transition?

Dennison Hambling

Yeah, so look for us at IMG, this this is our second acquisition off JCI, and when you acquire off JCI, you know, care is required in terms of just getting off their platforms, particularly their global domain server. You know, we don't want, and nor do they want, a party that comes in and disrupts their business, which is significantly larger than these individual enterprises. So, we understand that and have built you know strong alignment, relationship, and ability to operate with them. Look, the reality with these acquisitions is they're not there's not a particularly significant technical intertwining of these businesses. It took us a little while for this for the settlement to happen. We announced this in December, and it did take a longer than we had hoped to actually settle, and that was really just based off the legal entity itself and making sure that the things inside that entity that we were buying were the things that we were expecting to get. From here, all we really are doing is standing up our own IT people, our own finance people, and our own HR capacity. We have that in our group already clearly across both New Zealand and Australia. It's something we are quite used to. And from our business point of view and bearing in mind our broad operation probably looks most like a telco or an airline. If you live in that technical world of those sort of industries, standing up a function, like you know, hiring some people for HR and finance is not a particularly onerous exercise. So, I think us understanding what how the ecosystem works and us knowing and having done this before makes us you know quite relaxed about it. It's a low-risk item for us.

Andrew Musgrave

Looking now at Video Guard, one of the stated growth levers is expanding Video Guard and advanced video monitoring into the New Zealand commercial market. What does that opportunity look like and how mature is it compared to your Australian operations?

Dennison Hambling

Oh look, it it's very nascent in New Zealand. So, for us, we are we're more advanced in Australia, we've had longer to get our platform and technologies in place and square the business up. So, you know, we have it we have approaching, if not over a thousand sites on Video Guard Australia. We have apprehended with the police over 60, you know, essentially criminals this year either threat assist them as being a threat and/or they were in mid-crime and so it's a fundamental change for our industry. In New Zealand, we are you know, as I said, about six months to a year behind. We have our first sites; we have our first couple of commercial customers. We've also had our first deterrence’s. So, we have had a couple of instances in car yards, particularly in Christchurch, where you know we've been able to deter criminals from coming in effectively stealing cars in the middle of the night. So, you know, it's underway, but it is still early. I think the market opportunity is exactly the same in Australia and New Zealand as it is, frankly, everywhere in the world. This is the application of a new technology being you know, video-based AI, edge AI scanning to allow the control room to become a live assessment, threat assessment room. In the past it was really reacting to an alarm with not much information. So we see this opportunity as being very it totally changes the addressable market size by a factor of you know something like you know nine to ten times our historic market because we are now competing with essentially security guards and patrols and able to not just compete with them but also grow the size of the overall market because we're making actual security affordable now for businesses and people who would otherwise not have been able to afford it in the past. So, you know, it is the start of what we expect to be a multi-year very long journey. We will be competitive over time as others you know sort of figure out how to bring this together. We've but we have an early lead adoption here, and we want to make sure our brand you know leads the market out the other side as more and more people get to see what we can do, understand it, and then look to essentially you know use us to provide the service.

Andrew Musgrave

Finally, Denison, with the Tyco NZ acquisition now settled, the business enters FY27 as a materially larger entity across Australasia. So, what are the two or three things you want investors to be watching out for over the next 12 months?

Dennison Hambling

Yeah, so look, I'm very focused on the organic picture. So, you know, we have made a lot of done a lot of MA to get to this point over the last few years, and that was really to build the organization that we have today. And so, we feel really well founded, we feel very clean and clear in what we do. You know, we're we've been very focused in the back rooms about making sure that that flows to the organization. Now I'd like to see that start to come through an organic growth. So, for me, the sort of the acceleration over time over reasonable time periods of that sales growth is really what I'm looking for. I think backed up by you know strong cash flow and profit. And I think as we get through this year, you know, as I've been saying every year for several now, hopefully, you know, at some point people come to realise we're an incredibly inexpensive business. Our certainly our cost of capital and equity side is very punitive relative to other security companies around the world and you know, and actually give us the chance to build what I think can be here a really great, you know, Australasian industrial business that does a really great job for its customers and protecting and looking after their properties, both you know through security and protection, but also fire. So, I think I think that would be the things growth, organic growth and profitability cash flow are the you know the basics we're focused on and like to show people.

Andrew Musgrave

Okay, Dennison. Well, it's been great to chat again. So, thanks for the update. Lots of positive momentum and an exciting period ahead for the company, and we look forward to following the progress in the upcoming months.

Dennison Hambling

Great. Thanks very much, Andrew. Appreciate your time.

Andrew Musgrave

That concludes this episode of ASX Briefs. Don't forget to subscribe, and we look forward to catching you on our next episode.