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CBRE continues to expand its real estate services offerings through acquisitions.
The global commercial real estate giant has agreed to acquire a 60% stake in U.K.-based project management firm Turner & Townsend Holdings for $1.3B, CBRE announced in a press release Tuesday. The all-cash transaction values Turner & Townsend at $2.2B and will preserve the company's independent branding and operating structure, with company leaders maintaining ownership of the remaining 40%.
Turner & Townsend operates in 46 countries but hopes to use its new partnership with CBRE to significantly expand its U.S. business. It will be nested in the Global Workspace Solutions branch of CBRE, within which it will be publicizing its financial disclosures once the transaction closes, likely by the end of this year, the release states.
Though the majority of its revenue comes from real estate project and program management, about 38% of Turner & Townsend's business comes from a combination of infrastructure and natural resources projects. The company had already been working to expand its business into more areas of environmental sustainability, such as green energy and carbon neutrality, when CBRE approached it seeking the merger, The Wall Street Journal reports.
That increased focus on sustainability as an area of client advisory services was a driving factor in getting the deal done for CBRE, CEO Bob Sulentic said in an interview with the WSJ.
“There’s not much [that is] more important on our clients’ radar today than carbon neutrality and green energy,” Sulentic told the WSJ.
CBRE had already invested in renewable energy earlier this month when a special-purpose acquisition company it created agreed to merge with Altus Group, which installs solar panels, electric vehicle charging stations and other equipment at commercial properties. CBRE will own a minority stake in the new, publicly traded version of Altus Group, which is initially valued at nearly $1.6B.
Mere weeks before that, CBRE announced the acquisition of Union Gaming, a gambling-focused investment bank based in Las Vegas. In February, it acquired a 35% stake in coworking operator Industrious for $200M. CBRE has also been investing in proptech firms for years, most recently as an investor in a $100M fund managed by MetaProp, and shows no signs of slowing down.
“We have a balance sheet with billions of dollars of capacity to invest,” Sulentic told the WSJ.
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