Swedish private equity firm EQT plans to significantly expand Bilfinger's property services arm and transform it into a 'European market leader', according to company representatives.
'The plan is to expand Building and Facility’s already strong platform by organic growth as well as via acquisitions and to grow stronger than the market in Europe. The intention is to create a European leader in the real-estate services sector and EQT will invest in the company accordingly,' commented Andreas Aschenbrenner, partner at EQT Partners, and investment advisor to EQT VII, which bought the platform.
EQT agreed last week to buy German engineering and services group Bilfinger's property arm for around €1.2 bn.
The transaction, which represents a nearly 15% discount to the entreprise value of €1.4 bn, also includes the GVA property services business and represents an EBITA multiple of 11 times the full year estimate for 2016.
The platform includes three divisions: Facility Services, Real Estate, and Building, and employs more than 20,000 people with an annual output volume of €2.5 bn.
It has a particularly strong presence in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with a relatively strong market positions also in the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Turkey.
'The European real-estate services sector is a promising market, which is set to benefit from the growth rate of outsourced real-estate services. Focus going forward lies on further developing the integrated services offering across its growing European platform,' EQT added.
EQT has already been active in facility management, having acquired the ISS business in the early 2000's which it subsequently transformed into one of the world’s largest facility managers. The business went public in 2014.
