CBRE is buying a data center contractor. The Dallas-based real estate services giant agreed Oct. 20 to acquire Onnec Group, a London firm that designs, deploys and maintains network, fiber and data center infrastructure for hyperscalers, for £460 million (about $610 million) in cash. A multi-year earnout of up to £300 million (about $400 million) could take the price to roughly $1 billion if Onnec clears growth thresholds CBRE hasn’t disclosed.
CBRE announced the deal in a release and an 8-K the same day. It still needs regulatory approvals, and CBRE expects it to close around year-end.
What CBRE gets in the Onnec acquisition
Onnec was founded in 1986 and has about 800 employees serving hyperscalers in the U.K., continental Europe and Asia Pacific. CBRE projects it will bring in about £370 million ($498 million) of revenue and more than £50 million ($67 million) of core EBITDA in 2027. On the upfront price alone, that’s a little over nine times next year’s projected EBITDA. Pay the full earnout and it’s about 15 times.
Onnec will sit in CBRE’s Critical Infrastructure Services line, which CBRE expects to generate nearly $4.5 billion of revenue in 2027 with Onnec included. Add the infrastructure work done inside Project Management and Advisory and CBRE puts its 2027 infrastructure services revenue at nearly $7.0 billion, not counting data center land sales.
COO Vikram Kohli said CBRE is pursuing “an explicit strategy to build a global infrastructure services business” next to the brokerage and property business most contractors know it for.
Critical infrastructure revenue jumped 80% last quarter
Two days later, CBRE’s third-quarter results showed why it’s willing to pay. Critical infrastructure services revenue surged 80% in local currency, driven by data center work and by Pearce Services, which CBRE bought in November 2025. The Building Operations & Experience segment that houses that business grew revenue 17% to $6.86 billion, and segment operating profit rose 21% to $349 million.
Project Management, home to CBRE’s program management and cost consulting, grew far more slowly. Its revenue rose 3% to $2.04 billion, and segment operating profit climbed 9.5% to $162 million. Companywide revenue rose 13% to $11.5 billion.
Owner-side firms keep buying data center capacity
The pattern is getting hard to miss. Firms that built their names on the owner’s side of the table are buying companies that deliver the work. Accenture bought Avicado and its 190 construction tech specialists the same week, four weeks after launching its own construction unit. CBRE’s deal is bigger and closer to the field: Onnec’s business is designing, installing and maintaining the network and fiber backbone of data halls.
U.S. low-voltage and structured cabling subs won’t see Onnec bidding against them right away. CBRE pitched it as a geographic complement to the data center services it already runs in the United States. But a buyer paying nine times forward EBITDA, with $400 million more held out for growth, says plenty about what fiber and cabling capacity is worth to hyperscaler customers right now.
The earnout is the number to watch. If Onnec earns all of it, CBRE will have paid about $1 billion for a business it expects to book $498 million of revenue next year.