Avison Young takes a peek at GVA

Acquisitive Canadian property advisory firm Avison Young is considering a bid for GVA. The company has been given access to the data room that has been set up by the company’s adviser, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. A deal for GVA would allow Avison Young to establish a comprehensive platform in the UK, where it currently has around 100 staff. It has been steadily building its presence in the UK since it entered the market in 2014, buying niche businesses including out-of-town retail specialist Wilkinson Williams in August. Avison Young is run in the UK by Jason Sibthorpe (pictured), who knows the GVA business intimately, having been the company’s head of transactions and capital markets until 2016. The Canadian company has traditionally bought firms through issuing shares in the parent company, which would not be attractive to GVA’s Swedish private equity owner, EQT, as it would look for a cleaner exit. However, in July Canadian fund manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) made a $250m preferred equity investment into Avison Young. As a result, the company’s chairman and chief executive, Mark Young, said it had “one of the sector’s largest war chests” and he is looking to buy in $1bn (£762m) of turnover through acquisitions globally – half of which will be in the US, with the majority of the balance in the UK and the rest of Europe. GVA has had £200m of debt stapled to it by EQT but there is no certainty that bids, if any materialise, will be around that figure. An initial target had been set to conclude the process by the end of the year. It is thought that Cushman & Wakefield has also been running numbers on GVA and has the firepower and ability to make a bid, following its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in August. However, a bid is unlikely to be forthcoming in the short term as EQT continues to explore a market-testing exercise. To send feedback, e-mail david.hatcher@egi.co.uk or tweet @hatcherdavid or @estatesgazette