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Turner & Townsend partners have been paid a total of £18.9m in bonuses following CBRE’s £960m deal to take a majority stake in the business 18 months ago. 

The figure also includes a retention bonus – to prevent an exodus of key staff – which will not be handed out until October 2024, the company’s latest accounts reveal. 

CBRE, the world’s largest real estate services firm, took a 60% stake in the 75-year-old consultant in July 2021, with the purchase rubber-stamped later that year. 

The New York stock exchange-listed company valued T&T at £1.6bn when the deal was completed. 

On the day the deal was announced, chief executive Vince Clancy confirmed to ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV that the £960m would be split between the firm’s 106 partners. 

That means that on paper, each partner stood to pick up an average of £9m, though some will be paid substantially more than others, with Clancy reported to have been in line for as much as £40m. 

The amounts reported in the firm’s latest accounts only relate to bonus payments with the amounts each partner has been paid for their shares unlikely to be revealed.

>> Also read: All our coverage of CBRE’s takeover of T&T in one place

The decision to delay a chunk of the pay-out to partners was most likely an attempt to avoid a repeat of the situation seen a decade ago, when several Davis Langdon staff left to set up their own businesses after it was bought by Aecom for £200m. 

Rob Smith, the former boss of Davis Langdon who helped to mastermind its sale, said that the T&T deal would nonetheless trigger the setting up of a wave of new firms. 

T&T’s accounts for the 12 months to April 2022, filed this week, showed revenue rose to £844m from £727m last year.

Turnover grew in all of the firm’s seven regions, with the strongest growth in Asia (28%) and Europe (24.6%). Staff numbers were also up 24.7% to 8,481 but pre-tax profit dropped from £113 to £101m. 

T&T’s best-paid director earned £647,000 in 2022, up significantly from £507,000 paid the year before.