BERLIN (Reuters) - Buyout group EQT is selling facilities manager Apleona, a former unit of industrial services group Bilfinger, to private equity firm PAI Partners for about 1.6 billion euros ($1.94 billion), it said on Sunday.

EQT, which bought the company at a valuation of 1.4 billion euros in 2016, said the transaction was expected to close early in the second quarter of 2021. Deutsche Bank acted as financial adviser to EQT.Apleona employs more than 20,000 staff in over 30 countries and has annual sales of 2 billion euros. It counts BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler, BASF, Adidas, Siemens and Lufthansa among its clients.

Following the carve-out from Bilfinger, Apleona has sold activities such as the turnkey construction business in Germany and its UK-based real estate advisory business GVA.

Bilfinger is set to benefit from the sale as a result of an earn-out clause in the 2016 deal, which provided equity-like participation rights. EQT expects proceeds of about 450-470 million euros to Bilfinger’s preferred participation note.

Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Emelia Sithole-Matarise