CBRE Buys Vegas-Based Bank Focused On Gaming Industry
CBRE is beefing up its gaming industry efforts, acquiring the Las Vegas-based Union Gaming investment bank.
The acquisition, announced Wednesday, will add Union Gaming’s industry-specific banking and advisory services to CBRE’s own gaming investment sales team and make Union Gaming co-founder Bill Lerner CBRE’s Global Head of Gaming Investment Banking.
“Whether it’s the realization of casinos’ underlying real estate value, evolution of new gaming formats and technology, expansion of gaming in Asia, or recent surge of sports and online gaming, there is no better partner to continue our commitment to this next chapter of the business than CBRE,” Lerner said in a statement.
The price of the acquisition was undisclosed. Union Gaming has raised $28B in capital and has been involved with approximately $5B worth of public offerings in 2021 alone, including the MGM Growth Properties REIT spinoff and slot machine producer Bally, the firm said in a Q2 2021 statement. The firm's analytics department recently aided Chicago's efforts in studying the probability of five potential sites for a potential casino.
Union Gaming's employees will team up with the group led by CBRE Executive Vice President of Gaming Capital Markets Michael Parks.
CBRE earlier this month invested in proptech fund MetaProp, and last year created a special purpose acquisition company with a goal of raising $400M and taking a real estate tech firm public. It also acquired a 35% stake in flex office operator Industrious for $200M in February.
