CHICAGO– JLL announced it reached an agreement to acquire Boston-based Building Engines, a market-leading building operations platform that transforms how properties are run, provides exceptional experiences for operators and tenants and improves net operating income (NOI) across the world’s most successful commercial real estate (CRE) portfolios.
JLL will acquire Building Engines for a cash purchase price of approximately $300 million. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory review.
Building Engines’ cloud platform serves as a comprehensive, easy-to-use system that unites all the technology and applications used to run buildings in one place. Its comprehensive capabilities streamline work orders, make maintenance more efficient, and simplify interactions between building tenants, management and staff. “Building Engines joining JLL represents JLL’s continued commitment to technology leadership and bringing the best technology to our investor clients,” said Sharad Rastogi, President at JLL Technologies (JLLT), a division of JLL.
“Together, JLL and Building Engines will accelerate the digital transformation of buildings worldwide.” Jay Koster, President of Investor Services, Americas for JLL, continued, “The combination of JLL’s expertise in managing buildings, Building Engines’ leading building operations software platform and JLLT’s CRE technology leadership will accelerate the transition of property operations from manual and reactive activities to technology-informed, automated or digitized activities.”
Building Engines serves more than 1,000 clients who rely on its platform to manage critical operational needs across more than 3 billion square feet and 35,000 properties worldwide. Its enterprise-class platform, which will continue to be available for use by all property owners and their service providers, scales as an investor’s portfolio grows—from one building to larger, more complex environments. Additionally, the platform’s open API infrastructure features more than 30 integrations with other building operations tools, unifying an increasingly fragmented set of building operations applications into a single user experience for all property managers.
Building Engines
“We set out to be the leading building operations platform for CRE, guided by our vision of providing an exceptional experience for everyone in every building and increasing net operating income for our customers,” said Tim Curran, CEO of Building Engines. “The building operations software landscape has become highly fragmented, leading to a disconnected experience for investors, operators, tenants and occupants. Our open platform and growing suite of product modules aims to solve this, with solutions that have proven to be indispensable for CRE operators and investors. By joining forces with JLL, we can deliver on that vision faster, at scale, and become the system of record for building operations worldwide.”
JLL and Building Engines have a longstanding relationship serving joint customers, and Building Engines already integrates with software JLL invests in and uses. Together, the companies intend to leverage Building Engines’ open platform to create a comprehensive ecosystem of building operations applications by integrating JLLT’s robust technology product portfolio, technologies it invests in through global venture arm JLL Spark, and the broader landscape of CRE software vendors to meet the needs of real estate investors.
Building Engines will operate within JLLT and Curran, who joined Building Engines as a board director in 2011 and was named CEO in 2017, will serve as Executive Managing Director, Building Engines, reporting to Rastogi. Building Engines will continue to serve existing customers and real estate investors worldwide to help them maximize the value of their assets, and JLL’s Property Management clients who use Building Engines will now benefit from closer alignment between the technology and JLL’s services.
William Blair served as the exclusive financial advisor to Building Engines in this transaction.
