Balfour Beatty Acquires GMH Military Housing

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorNewton Square, Penn.–Balfour Beatty, a London-based international engineering, construction, investment and services group, recently acquired GMH Military Housing, the former military housing division of GMH Communities Trust, for $350.5 million.The military housing business of the company will now be managed under Balfour Beatty Communities, and will continue providing military housing. The entire executive management team, as well as existing corporate and project-level military housing employees, will remain part of the new company.Balfour Beatty Communities, based in Newton Square, Penn., maintains interests, primarily through joint ventures with the Department of Defense, in 12 military housing projects on 37 military bases (representing approximately 25,700 end-state housing units) having an aggregate development value of approximately $3 billion.The acquisition of the military housing business by Balfour Beatty significantly expands its already extensive presence in the defense sector. Among other development projects within the U.S., Balfour Beatty currently is involved in building the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon and provides master planning, engineering, design and design/build services for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Veterans Affairs for healthcare facilities in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Germany. Bruce Robinson, president and CEO of Balfour Beatty Communities, says, “Our management team and employee base remains unchanged, and is clearly focused on our core strengths of providing high-quality housing communities to U.S. military members and their families. We look forward to further growth of our business through the pursuit of additional defense sector privatization projects, as well as other opportunities within the public-private partnership (PPP) arena.”