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CBRE is making good on its promise to undertake merger and acquisition deals during the downturn with the purchase of a real estate investment banking business and a UK office developer.
The world’s largest brokerage firm announced Monday that the investment banking team from Sera Global has joined the company. Sera was set up by a division of investment giant Brookfield and has offices in New York, London, Los Angeles, Toronto, Boston, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Madrid and Seoul.
The Sera team brings extensive experience across investment banking services, including mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, liquidity solutions and infrastructure advisory, CBRE said in a statement. Sera Global CEO Leo van den Thillart has joined CBRE as global head of investment banking.
Trammell Crow, CBRE’s development division, also said Monday that it has acquired Candour, a London-based office developer.
The move is Trammell Crow’s first entry into UK office development, having previously bought multifamily developer Telford Homes and built up a pan-European logistics portfolio.
Candour has approximately 850K SF of commercial projects under construction or in the pipeline, including Welcome Building in Bristol, 39 Deansgate in Manchester city centre and the strategic repositioning of two London office assets, 20 Gresham Street in the City and 25-28 Old Burlington Street in the West End. Those projects will now be completed by Trammell Crow.
Candour’s founders, Toby Pentecost and Dan Rees, will join Trammell Crow as senior vice presidents and co-heads of UK offices.
Earlier this year, CBRE said it would spent between $2B and $5.5B on corporate acquisitions and stock buybacks.
“We believe the current environment is an attractive time to deploy capital,” Chief Financial Officer Emma Giamartino said on an earnings call in April. “Our M&A pipeline is strong, with multiple attractive opportunities — some large — that could transform CBRE’s existing offerings and drive meaningful shareholder values.”
The deals come even as CBRE said last week that it needed to reduce its operating costs further to the tune of $150M due to the fact that its earnings this year would not be as high as previously estimated.
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