Global commercial real estate services giant CBRE Group has agreed to buy Norland Managed Services, a London-based engineering services provider for commercial buildings, for about US$400m in cash.

Norland operates in the UK and Ireland and has recently added a North American division and won deals in Singapore. The company does a lot of work for clients in the data center space.

Bob Concannon, CEO of CBRE's Global Corporate Services business, said the acquisition adds to the fullness of real-estate-related outsourcing services the company provides in the UK and Europe.

“We will have the ability to self-perform building technical engineering services in Europe, as we already do for more than 850m sq ft of client properties in North America, Latin America and Asia-Pacific,” he said. “This transaction will significantly enhance our service offering, enable us to provide an integrated suite of outsourcing services and deepen our relationships with global and multinational occupiers.”

Norland has about 4,000 employees and 14 offices, serving about 300 clients. The company already provides services to a number of large CBRE clients, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch and State Street Corp.

Following the closing of the transaction, Norland's existing operations will operate as CBRE, Norland, to make use of Norland's reputation for expertise in building technical engineering services. Norland CEO Ian Entwisle will continue as chief executive of the company once it becomes a CBRE business unit.

A large near-term opportunity for the unit will be to sell its services to CBRE's continental Europe client base, Entwisle said.

Norland reported about $616m in revenue for its fiscal year ended April 5, 2013. Its revenue has grown at a double-digit rate every year over the past ten years. The growth came from corporations turning over the management of their real estate to third-party specialists.

CBRE expects to close the acquisition before the end of 2013.