Alvaro Novoa will lead ADL’s post-acquisition strategy, while CEO-in-Residence Steven Bourgeois focuses on OmniSecur Group.
Less than a year after acquiring Nivelles-based Alsec with WAD Capital’s backing, OmniSecur Group has acquired ADL Security SRL, a fellow Walloon Brabant installer. ADL becomes the group’s second acquisition since it was set up in 2025 to consolidate the fragmented physical security and safety market.
WAD Capital framed the new business as an expert platform for integrating fire safety and security companies, driven by growing fire safety legislation. The plan was to acquire the technical prime player in a fragmented market, then establish credibility and operational standards, and finally, add high-margin security installers with existing B2B customer bases. “Tightening fire safety and security compliance regulation across Belgium creates predictable demand for professional, accredited installers, exactly the profile that a consolidated group can serve at scale where individual owner-operated firms cannot,” WAD notes in a blog post.
This reasoning rests on a valuation gap between small and larger companies. According to WAD, at €200,000 EBITDA, the average European acquisition multiple is approximately 3.9x. At €10 million EBITDA, it is 7.2x. The gap reflects the risk premium buyers apply to smaller, founder-dependent, structurally under-managed businesses. But WAD believes buy-and-build provides the bridge.
The private equity firm uses a search fund model that starts with the entrepreneurs rather than the target. “The strength of our model is that every acquisition is led by a pre-selected CEO-in-Residence,” points out WAD Capital managing partner Christopher Tournis Gamble. These “CEOs-in-Residence” source, buy and run an established SME within 300 kilometres of Brussels, with a focus on succession. Every CEO-in-Residence receives up to €500,000 in search capital to find a target, and WAD then typically commits €1 million to €2 million of equity per deal, with a senior lender and a co-investor such as Wallonie Entreprendre – which backs OmniSecur alongside WAD – completing the financing.
This is how OmniSecur CEO Steven Bourgeois initially came into the picture. Steven previously ran the P&L of a France–Benelux subsidiary rolling out fire safety solutions, but took over Alsec on 14 November 2025 through an SME succession as part of the 2024 CEOs-in-Residence cohort. It was one of WAD Capital's first three acquisitions. He notes:
“Alsec represents the foundation of our vision to build Belgium’s leading integrated security platform.”
WAD Capital has grown quickly since. In mid-July (2026), its Fund I completed a €67.5 million first close, with the European Investment Fund (EIF) as its largest investor at €25 million under InvestEU, alongside Wallonie Entreprendre, family offices and private investors. The firm is targeting €130 million, which means more M&A. “By increasing the number of CEOs-in-Residence from 13 to 25, we can acquire 25 healthy SMEs…,” explains WAD managing partner Alain Brossé in a press release.
ADL, which has secured industrial, commercial and private properties in Braine-l’Alleud since 1984, was a natural next fit. “A few months ago, Sébastien Diaz Alvarez, Alain Maus and I sat down around a table. Very quickly, bringing our companies together felt obvious: company culture, technologies and technical expertise, and region – it all aligned,” Steven shares.
With ADL Security, the group now offers end-to-end electronic security, including intrusion detection, CCTV, access control, fire detection and monitoring. “We’re not just consolidating providers; we’re creating a unified group that delivers superior service, invests in its people, and brings enterprise-grade security solutions to mid-market companies across Belgium,” Steven says.
Breaking up buy and build
Alvaro Novoa will lead the post-acquisition strategy for ADL Security. He brings more than 12 years’ experience in energy and infrastructure investment, on transactions ranging from €100 million to over €1 billion. He previously served as a private equity associate at Fisterra Energy, Blackstone’s energy transition platform, a senior consultant at KPMG’s Global Strategy Group and an engineer and analyst at Abengoa, and holds an MBA from IESE.
As a WAD Capital CxO, Alvaro holds what the investor describes as a fixed-term, operating-level role supporting M&A and operations across its portfolio companies, “not a training exercise or an observation period”. He will be working alongside a CEO-in-Residence (in this case, Steven) who has already been through an acquisition and now runs the day-to-day business.
This dual approach addresses two problems the firm notes in a blog on what buy-and-build demands of an operator:
“Diligence on an add-on candidate requires weeks of focused analysis. Running a platform company in its first year requires daily operational presence. Most people cannot sustain both at a high standard concurrently.”
The timing of a first add-on like this matters too. “When a first add-on company closes before the platform has developed the reporting infrastructure, management routines and cultural norms to absorb it, you are not building a group. You are combining two organisations that are both in transition simultaneously, with one leader trying to hold both together,” the firm argues.
Post-acquisition opportunities
For WAD Capital, the period after the deal is closed is where the returns are made. Alvaro hasn’t detailed his post-acquisition strategy for ADL, but WAD’s playbook sets out what a platform needs before it can keep adding companies: “core functions running at a baseline level, covering shared procurement, pooled technical talent, and common back-office processes”.
Moreover, the investor stresses the need for a management layer below the CEO that can make operational decisions independently:
“In most acquired SMEs, that layer does not exist on day one. Building it is a first-year priority that directly enables or constrains the entire buy-and-build timeline.”
This also presents an opportunity, however, WAD adds. “Operational improvements compound quickly because the starting point is often a business that has never had a dedicated finance function, a formal CRM, or a systematic approach to key account management.”
ADL adds a second technical team in the same areas as Alsec that “shares INCERT and BOSEC expertise, vendor partnerships and back-office functions”. The focus will be on “service excellence, modernising operations and compliance frameworks, and building a scalable organisation for mid-market clients seeking long-term security partnerships”.
A seat before the search
For Alvaro, the seat is also a step towards his own deal. He is part of WAD’s Cohort 2026 of CEOs-in-Residence, who are searching for an SME to acquire and lead for the long term. While some executives move straight from selection into their own acquisition search, others, like Alvaro, take on the operating role first to gain practical experience at SME scale before they’re accountable for a company’s operating results. Once the CxO period ends, he moves into the search phase alongside the rest of the firm’s cohort intake.
Ownership was always his goal, Alvaro explains in a company blog post why he joined the CxO role, but the sectors he’d built his career in made that hard to reach on his own. He points specifically to WAD Capital’s pace of institutionalising the model as the reason behind his move from a conventional investment career.
Alvaro already knows where he wants to look, too. His profile says he is “preparing to launch his own search to acquire and scale a company in the electricity sector” (which he already knows well), to “capture the energy transition tailwinds” and “transform it into a market leader”.
When Alvaro’s search begins, he will run the same process as the rest of his cohort: “building a sector thesis, mapping target companies, and eventually negotiating and closing an acquisition”, according to WAD Capital. Until then, Alvaro’s focus is ADL.
Quorum Law guided the process.
