The conditions of the transaction have not been exposed. The owner of the remaining parts of shares will be Gilles Betthaeuser, the founder and chairman of AOS Group who is still going to run the company. Thanks to the concluded transaction, Colliers company will be able to develop its activity in France as well as Belgium and extend foregoing activity on other markets, offering clients richer assortment of services: representation of tenants, management of designs and advisory related to organization of a work place.
The possibility of developing the activity on the French market – one of the most important global commercial property market – was a priority issue to us. The fact that we will be also able to extend a foregoing activity on other markets offering complementary and more diverse services cause that the takeover of AOS is an important stage in the development of our company in Europe – said Chris McLernon, CEO in Colliers International for EMEA region. – We are convinced that the strength of our global platform and Colliers branch will help our clients to achieve even greater success, thanks to the development and diversification of our foregoing services, including those within properties’ management and assets, evaluation of properties and operations on capital markets – added Chris McLernon.
Colliers International is a partnership depended on FirstService Corporation (NASDAQ:FSRV;TSX:FSV). Once again our proven model of a partnership cooperation enabled to conclude such an important transaction – said Jay S. Hennick, the founder and chairman in FirstService. – FirstService and Colliers have been developing dynamically for years thanks to the cooperation with such outstanding specialists as Gilles Betthaeuser – leaders of business who manage groups which treat their work with great enthusiasm and will to achieve success and create values by providing clients various services. On behalf of our whole organization I would like to welcome Gilles in our increasing team – added Jay S. Hennick.
AOS Group is one of the leading European companies which functions on the commercial property market and consulting services related to the organization of a work place. It was founded in 1997 and hires over 450 specialists from the property industry, i.a. advisors, engineers, architects, designers, managers of projects and financial analysts who are specialized in the area of commercial and institutional properties. AOS experts offer a wide assortment of services from a conceptual design to realization. Currently, annually incomes of AOS reach ca. 100 million dollars.
Mutual adjustment of our companies in respect of culture and strategy was visible from the very beginning – admitted Gilles Betthaeuser, chairman in AOS Group. – The organizational culture of Colliers is similar to ours. It is difficult to equal this company in respect of consequences in aiming at constant enhancement of realizing the undertakings. The whole group has high hopes with this new stage in history of our company. We count on even faster development of activity in the following years under the name of Colliers International – declared Gilles Betthaeuser.