Avison Young has reached a deal for an infusion of capital from a group of mostly Wall Street-based investors to help strengthen the company's finances and provide what it expects to be fresh liquidity for growth, profitability and long-term value.

This transaction, which is expected to close this fall, follows a separate process in 2024 that saw the company restructure its balance sheet and deleverage its financing as it faced a credit rating downgrade.

"We're working with the same investors," Avison Young president and chairman Mark Rose told RENX in an interview, adding that they are a group of largely 20 Wall Street-based or U.S.-based investors. "There's two very small Canadian investors in there (also)."

The deal will preserve Avison Young’s structure as a principal-led firm.

In particular, Rose said the transaction will deleverage the balance sheet debt-to-EBITDA ratio of less than 3x; reduce debt and preferred equity by nearly 70 per cent; provide key financial partners with common equity ownership; and preserve the company's current principals’ common shares. 

Asked about the total size of the capital investment, Rose said: "That will probably be issued at closing, but right now we can't announce that yet. But it is significant for us to take in the capital to have the new (credit) facility, and also to add tens of millions of dollars that was going to pay interest."

Since 2008, Avison Young has acquired 51 companies

Avison Young plans to engage in what it calls a "disciplined strategy of organic expansion and targeted acquisitions."

"They (the investors) are putting in new money," Rose said. "In 2008, Avison Young was a purely Canadian company at $40 million in revenue, and we've grown that to over $1.2 billion, and part of that was by buying 51 companies, and we will be now — with this transaction — focusing on the acquisition of teams of tuck-in acquisitions and of larger acquisitions, and this transaction is that next step that that really enables us to do that."

The transaction is expected to close in October 2026, with an equity group consisting of the firm’s existing financial partners, employees and principals.

Launched in 1978, Avison Young is a global commercial real estate advisory firm with more than 100 offices and more than 4,000 real estate professionals.

Expanded focus to include retrofits and data centres 

Rose said the focus will be on expanding its client offerings into sectors and markets with strong growth potential, opportunities where client needs are currently underserved, and the company's technology and market intelligence platforms. 

In particular, the company expects to focus more on commercial and residential retrofits. Rose said the market "has spoken" and continues to value trophy office buildings and spaces. "But just remember, not everybody can afford a trophy asset or an A-class asset," he said.

To that end, "you can also work on the retrofit of these assets along with the strategies that we have for new construction for the clients that want to engage in new construction,” he said. “We think a missed opportunity is the retrofit of existing assets that people have a tendency to overlook, and so you'll see a bit of a focus there as well."

The company is also excited about the data centre market in Canada. "We have focused our teams from a few years ago, where there were just a few people, to over 50 strong who do nothing but data centres,” Rose said, adding that they are working on business lines that range from land offerings to strategy and power.

“These are services and service lines that we want to be investing in."

Data centres are popular for all the right reasons, he said. "Even subject to power issues, and water issues, and pushback by communities, it is a... real asset class."

Recovery and growth in 2026

Despite a persistently uncertain economic environment in recent years, which has led to subdued market activity, Avison Young says it experienced recovery and growth in the first half of this year, led by U.S. capital markets revenue while non-brokerage revenues drove growth in the Canadian business. 

"At the end of last year, the incremental recovery of the commercial real estate markets started, and every day since has improved," Rose said. 

That recovery has continued despite a backdrop of economic and political volatility, he said, mentioning war, tariffs and other "atypical" challenges. 

"Industrial, office, retail, (are) incrementally better every single day,” he said.

Improvements also continue on lease length, transaction velocity, and access to debt and capital, Rose said: "We are recovering.”