CBRE Adds Environmental Firm to European Consulting Group

By Gail Kalinoski, Contributing Editor

Mike Strong, CBRE

CBRE Group Inc., continues expanding its European-based services with the purchase of VALTEQ Gesellschaft mbH and its subsidiaries, a real estate consulting firm in Germany. Once the deal closes, VALTEQ will become a fully integrated part of CBRE’s Building Consultancy Group in Germany and across Europe.

Expected to close before the end of the first quarter, the deal is subject to German regulatory approval. Terms were not disclosed.

VALTEQ was founded by its current owners, Dr. Thomas Herr, Dr. Gabriel Luft and Jurgen Scheins.  the firm specializes in technical and environmental due diligence for commercial real estate. VALTEQ provides technical asset management, project management and facilities management services and also focuses on creating economically feasible sustainable solutions.

VALTEQ , which has offices in Berlin, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Munich and Nuremberg, has about 60 employees. The team includes civil engineers, architects, economists, geologists and service technician, many of whom also have additional real-estate related qualifications.

“We are committed to providing our clients with the broadest range of property services possible,” Michael Strong, CBRE’s executive chairman of Europe, Middle East and Africa, said in a statement. “VALTEQ will give us a new service proposition in Germany that complements our existing offering in that country as well as in our EMEA building consultancy business as a whole. We will be looking to bring VALTEQ’s best-in-class services to all of our clients across Europe in the very near future.”

Herr said the acquisition “creates a fantastic opportunity for both our clients and our colleagues. We are positioned to deliver integrated services to clients across the region and also address a requirement that is not yet fulfilled in the German market.”

The acquisition is one of several recent moves by CBRE in Europe. In late December, CBRE Group announced that it had paid $434.3 million for Norland Managed Services, Ltd., a provider of technical engineering services for commercial buildings in the United Kingdom and Ireland, United States and Singapore. Norland is now part of CBRE’s Global Corporate Services business. The firm has expertise in management of critical environments, such as data centers and trading floors, a growing segment that requires specialized knowledge and experience, according to CBRE.

Norland’s CEO Ian Entwisle will continue to run the business that has grown both profits and revenue more than 20 percent each year for the past 10 years. The deal also included 362 shares of CBRE common stock that were issued at closing. CBRE may also have to pay an additional $81.8 million.

Strong cited the Norland acquisition as a “key milestone” in the growth of CBRE’s EMEA business.

In early November, CBRE Group acquired Alan Selby & Partners, a London residential development consultancy, sales and leasing agency. The purchase price was not released but CBRE said at the time that it marked another step in the growth of CBRE’s United Kingdom residential business.

Also within the past year, the firm has picked up the majority interest in Basale Sverige AB, a property and asset management company in Stockholm, Sweden, and acquired IMPACT-CORTI a.s., the leading property management firm in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Basale Sverige has been renamed CBRE-Basale AB and will continue to be run by its CEO Ulf Attebrant.