CBRE rules out Turner & Townsend float
CBRE’s chief executive has reaffirmed his desire to make project manager Turner & Townsend a “long-term” part of CBRE’s growth – but has acknowledged the business would make a prime IPO candidate.
The agency bought a 60% stake in London-based T&T for £960m in 2021, and earlier this year upped its holding to 70%. The remainder is held by Turner & Townsend partners.
CBRE chief executive Bob Sulentic spent much of this week’s second-quarter earnings call discussing the business, describing the combined operations as “positioned to provide years of resilient double-digit growth”.
CBRE’s chief executive has reaffirmed his desire to make project manager Turner & Townsend a “long-term” part of CBRE’s growth – but has acknowledged the business would make a prime IPO candidate.
The agency bought a 60% stake in London-based T&T for £960m in 2021, and earlier this year upped its holding to 70%. The remainder is held by Turner & Townsend partners.
CBRE chief executive Bob Sulentic spent much of this week’s second-quarter earnings call discussing the business, describing the combined operations as “positioned to provide years of resilient double-digit growth”.
“The business will be large enough, resilient enough and rapidly growing enough to change the long-term profile of CBRE,” Sulentic said.
The agency was asked by a JP Morgan analyst if the business was “something that you would consider spinning off at some point?” Sulentic suggested not.
“Turner & Townsend would be a great public company, make no mistake about it,” the chief executive said. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm for companies like them in the public markets today. They’re very unique, even relative to other large program and project management firms and large engineering firms, but they fit really, really nicely with us. And we think there’s going to be a great story long-term there.
“We put [Turner & Townsend chief executive] Vince [Clancy] on our board because we think there’s so much synergy between what he and his business do and what the rest of our company does. So I hope they’re a very long-term part of CBRE.”
In an exclusive interview with EG earlier this month, Sulentic and Clancy discussed their vision for the combined business.
“From our perspective the deal unleashes a lot,” Clancy says. “It allows us to combine two great businesses and overnight become number one project manager in the world in real estate, and number one cost manager in the world in real estate. We get unrivalled global coverage. Our combined footprint is the best in the world in terms of what clients can access.”
