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Safe, Secure and Sound

The name Brink's has become synonomous with secure. CFO Michael Cazer says that applies to corporate risk management as well, providing the company with a balance sheet many would envy.

By Beth Karlin | Updated on January 01, 2009

It wasn’t unusual in the past for The Brink’s Co. to walk away from attractive acquisitions because it refused to pay what it saw as inflated prices. “We follow a very disciplined approach to capital allocation,” says Michael Cazer, vice president and CFO of the Richmond, Va.-based security business since May 2008. That approach has paid off. With a net cash position of $100 million, at a time when some competitors are flailing in a liquidity quagmire, Brink’s can now buy businesses at bargain prices.–perhaps even some of those businesses it passed on before.

“We are in a great position to invest as asset values decline,” says Cazer, who joined Brink’s after 20 years in financial and operational jobs with General Electric Co. Brink’s spun off its home security unit in late October as part of a streamlining plan that included the November sell-off of coal reserves to Massey Energy. Cazer credits the stringent application of Brink’s economic value added (EVA) strategy for its impressive balance sheet. Executives and the heads of all 700 branches, are measured on EVA performance. EVA, as used at Brink’s, measures the value created by a business, including the cost of capital deployed to generate its income. That’s net operating profit after tax minus the cost of capital.

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