CATHY MINNERLY
$94 million in 2001 sales

Compared to the major shifts in personnel seen a year ago, it has been a relatively quiet summer for Boston’s commercial real estate firms, but there are indications that a cauldron of change is boiling just beneath the surface.

Along with a reshuffling of the leadership team at Trammell Crow’s Boston office, industry sources said last week that several top-level real estate brokers are either exploring possible moves to competitors or are being recruited to make such a switch. Sources insist, for example, that NAI Hunneman Commercial Co. veteran Cathy Minnerly is leaving for Cushman & Wakefield, apparently to enhance the firm’s industrial brokerage capabilities.

“The Cathy Minnerly thing is going to happen,” asserted one source, although both Minnerly and Cushman & Wakefield officials did not return phone calls to discuss the matter when contacted by Banker & Tradesman last week. A 15-year real estate veteran, Minnerly was only recently named a principal at NAI Hunneman, where she was the company’s highest producing commercial broker in 2001, handling deals with a transaction volume of $94 million.

If the report bears out, it would be just the latest high-profile hiring at Cushman & Wakefield in the past year, with the firm shocking the industry last autumn when it lured Trammell Crow’s entire 15-person investment sales team away. That included leader Robert E. Griffin Jr., who was subsequently named Cushman & Wakefield’s New England region president. The move virtually overnight established the company as the premier commercial property sales operation in the Bay State. Having already negotiated the sales of Boston’s 470 Atlantic Ave. and Lafayette Corporate Center earlier this year, Cushman & Wakefield is currently the broker for such properties as Boston’s One Beacon St. office tower, the Cross Point office complex in Lowell and the Longwood Towers apartments in Brookline.

Cushman & Wakefield has since worked to strengthen its other capabilities, hiring landlord specialist James Thomson away from Grubb & Ellis several months ago. The Minnerly recruitment and other possible broker additions reflect a continued effort to strengthen the brokerage side of the business, according to industry observers, who praised Griffin for his strategic moves to date.

“He really has raised the profile of the company in a very short time, especially in investment sales,” said one Hub broker. “He’s aggressively looking for the best people out there.”

Management Changes

Meanwhile, at Griffin’s old firm, principals Joseph Fallon and Kenneth Baer have been promoted to run the Dallas company’s Boston office. The decision comes after the former managing director, Robert DeLaney, opted to resign in order to return to brokerage full time. In an interview last week, Fallon said he believes the changes in becoming co-managing director will be minimal for himself, given that he previously ran the brokerage services group and reported to DeLaney, who in turn reported to Crow’s regional president in New York City.

Baer, meanwhile, had overseen the Boston office’s project management team, and also reported to DeLaney. His role will be expanded, Fallon said, to include the property management and outsourcing division, requiring a bit more day-to-day involvement for Baer. As with Fallon, Baer will also report directly to the regional president.

“The good news is there is absolutely no change to what I’ve been doing for four-and-a-half years,” Fallon said. “It’s seamless for me and a slight change for Ken.”

Fallon added that the main impetus for the shakeup was DeLaney’s desire to return to brokerage, where he is now overseeing the leasing of Boston’s 33 Arch St. office tower. The main benefit for himself, Fallon said, is the ability to be better in touch with the regional president, John Maher. But he anticipates the breakdown of his activities will remain essentially 80 percent contact with clients and 20 percent dealing with the administration and oversight of the brokerage division, the same ratio as in the past.

“That’s very important to me,” Fallon said. “I enjoy working with clients and I know I will still be doing that going forward.”

Fallon also dismissed theories that Crow is trying to use Baer, a company veteran for 15 years, to better incorporate the Crow culture into the Boston office. Crow acquired the local team via its acquisition in 1998 of Fallon Hines & O’Connor for an estimated $35 million. It has been a mixed blessing for Crow since, with the firm certainly bolstering its presence locally, but also ultimately losing several of the prime players such as Griffin and his group. That defection was preceded by the departure of brokers Robert B. Richards, John Barry, Steve Purpura and Mike Frisoli last June to form a competing company, Richards Barry Joyce & Partners.

If anything, Fallon said, Crow national “is trying to tap into our culture” on brokerage, one that takes a teamwork approach based on a salary/bonus compensation vs. straight commission. Fallon noted, for example, that Boston has been retained to oversee the lucrative American Express account on the East Coast, meaning that Boston will service more than 200 American Express offices as far south as Florida.

“That’s very exciting for us,” he said. “Crow looked at the strongest of the brokerage operations, and [determined] that the most talented people are in Boston.”

Fallon added that the ability to service groups such as American Express, the 89th richest company in the world, exemplifies why his company agreed to the takeover in the first place. Although his team’s main focus will remain local, Fallon said the opportunities afforded by a national relationship will help his firm through the current market downturn in Massachusetts.

“Most of the brokers here have one pond to fish in … but Crow offers an opportunity for us to fish in another pond … and to service clients like American Express,” he said. “We look at it as a good opportunity to develop new revenues for the Boston office, especially in a declining market.”

As for recruiting new people to the Boston team, Fallon said his office has heard from several solid prospects looking to move elsewhere, but stressed that there are no current plans to add staff unless a new need arises or an especially strong candidate becomes available.

Corporate Shuffle Continues In Hub Brokerage Community

by Banker & Tradesman time to read: 4 min
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