CBRE Group has agreed to buy Onnec Group, a London-based company that designs, installs and maintains the cabling, fiber and network infrastructure inside data centers. The deal is worth up to about $1 billion and is the firm’s second large infrastructure-services acquisition in less than a year. CBRE, the Dallas-based commercial real estate services giant, announced the definitive agreement on Oct. 20, 2026. It will pay an initial £460 million (about $610 million) in cash. A multi-year earnout of up to £300 million (about $400 million) depends on Onnec meeting certain growth thresholds.
The deal still needs customary regulatory approvals. CBRE said it expects it to close around the end of the year.
What CBRE is buying in the Onnec acquisition
Onnec was founded in 1986 and has about 800 employees. According to CBRE’s release, the company “specializes in the design, deployment and maintenance of network, fiber and data center infrastructure” and serves hyperscalers, the largest cloud and technology companies, in the United Kingdom, Continental Europe and Asia Pacific. CBRE described Onnec’s geographic footprint as aligning with the data center infrastructure services it already provides in the United States.
CBRE expects Onnec to generate about £370 million ($498 million) in revenue in 2027 and more than £50 million ($67 million) of core EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a non-GAAP measure CBRE defines in the release). CBRE says the deal will add to its core earnings per share right away.
At the initial price, CBRE is paying no more than about 9.2 times Onnec’s projected 2027 core EBITDA. That is our arithmetic from the company’s figures, not a multiple CBRE published. If the full earnout is paid, total consideration would reach £760 million, or no more than about 15 times that projection.
J.P. Morgan Securities is CBRE’s financial advisor and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett its legal advisor. Goldman Sachs International and Freshfields are advising Onnec.
A second infrastructure business beside real estate services
CBRE is open about the strategy. “CBRE is pursuing an explicit strategy to build a global infrastructure services business to complement our real estate services business. We’ve long believed Onnec is an excellent fit in this strategy,” Vikram Kohli, CBRE’s chief operating officer, said in the release. “The acquisition is also consistent with our ongoing effort to build resilient businesses that benefit from secular tailwinds.”
Onnec will become part of CBRE’s Critical Infrastructure Services line of business. CBRE expects that line to bring in nearly $4.5 billion of revenue in 2027, Onnec included. Other CBRE units, mainly Project Management and Advisory Services, are expected to add almost $2.5 billion of infrastructure services revenue. That puts CBRE’s estimated total 2027 infrastructure services revenue at nearly $7.0 billion. The company noted that the figure leaves out revenue from the periodic data center land sales made by its development business.
Onnec follows CBRE’s Nov. 4, 2025 agreement to buy Pearce Services from New Mountain Capital for about $1.2 billion in cash plus a possible earnout of up to $115 million. Pearce, based in Paso Robles, Calif., provides technical services for digital and power infrastructure. CBRE projected more than $660 million of 2026 revenue and more than $90 million of EBITDA for it. Pearce was placed in CBRE’s Building Operations & Experience segment. Taken together, the two deals expand CBRE’s work in the physical plant behind cloud computing in both the U.S. and overseas.
Barry Horgan, Onnec’s chairman, framed the sale as access to a bigger platform. “As part of CBRE, we gain the platform and expertise to broaden our capabilities, creating even greater value for our clients, and provide new opportunities for our employees, while staying true to the customer-focused approach that has driven our success,” he said.
Why a brokerage giant wants cabling crews
For most of its history, CBRE has made money from leasing, sales, property management and investment management, businesses that rise and fall with transaction volume and interest rates. Data center services are tied instead to the long build-out of computing capacity by the hyperscalers. On our reading, that is the “secular tailwinds” Kohli refers to. This is technical work that does not depend as directly on whether office tenants sign leases or investors trade buildings.
The timing fits CBRE’s own research. RealtyWire has reported on CBRE’s finding that data center vacancy hit record lows as power constraints capped construction. Earlier this year, CBRE raised its full-year outlook after second-quarter revenue jumped 16%, with data center work among the drivers. The Onnec deal points the same way. CBRE is buying businesses that earn fees from operating and wiring these buildings, not only from leasing and selling them.
There are risks, and CBRE’s forward-looking statements name some of them. The Onnec projections depend on clients’ continued need for its services, on Onnec meeting its financial targets, and on CBRE’s ability to run it inside the Critical Infrastructure Services business. The earnout means a large share of the price is paid only if growth arrives. That shifts some of the risk back to Onnec’s sellers if the hyperscaler spending cycle slows.
The most immediate milestone is regulatory approval, with closing targeted around year-end. More coverage of the sector is in our Technology & AI section.
