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CBRE has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Norland Managed Services, a provider of commercial building technical engineering services in the UK and Ireland, for £250 mln (€296 mln) plus up to £50 mln of deferred payments.

The purchase price is payable in cash, except for £5.6 mln which will be paid in CBRE common stock to Norland senior management. CBRE ended the third quarter of 2013 with more than $500 mln of cash on its balance sheet.

Norland, founded in London in 1984, provides building technical engineering services to commercial real estate owners and occupiers primarily in the UK and Ireland and also has a growing roster of customers in the US and Singapore. Norland reported revenue of £385 mln for its fiscal year ended April 5, 2013.

CBRE said the acquisition will enable it to perform building technical engineering services in its UK and European Global Corporate Services (GCS) business, providing its client base with fully-integrated outsourcing services in the region.

'We will have the ability to self-perform building technical engineering services in Europe, as we already do for more than 850 million sq. ft. of client properties in North America, Latin America and Asia-Pacific,' commented Bill Concannon, CBRE’s CEO of GCS.

Following the closing of the transaction, Norland’s existing operations will operate as CBRE - Norland.

'Our firms fit together very well, both culturally and operationally,' added Ian Entwisle, CEO of Norland. 'By uniting our building technical engineering expertise with CBRE’s broad service offering and global reach, we foresee significant opportunities to expand our client base and accelerate our growth.'

A large near-term opportunity is to bring Norland’s services to CBRE’s client base in continental Europe, added Entwisle, who will lead the CBRE - Norland operations as CEO.

The Norland acquisition is expected to close before year end 2013 and is subject to clearance from the European Commission. BofA Merrill Lynch acted as sole financial advisor to CBRE, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP acted as CBRE’s legal advisors.