In a major upheaval of Boston’s commercial real estate industry, the entire Investment Services Group at Trammell Crow resigned Wednesday and defected to Crow rival Cushman & Wakefield, Banker & Tradesman has learned. Along with team leader Robert E. Griffin Jr., the departures include colleagues Marci Griffith, Ed Maher Jr. and a cadre of middle-market brokers and research personnel. In all, more than a dozen professionals are leaving Crow.
Griffin acknowledged the move Thursday morning, but declined to give details of his new position at the company. According to sources, however, he will be named president of Cushman & Wakefield’s New England operation, running it in partnership with the current regional leader, Thomas Collins. He would reportedly work on recruitment and overseeing investment sales activities, with Collins focusing on new business development. Cushman & Wakefield spokeswoman Victoria Goldberg declined comment on the situation.
Griffin told Banker & Tradesman he has mixed emotions about leaving the firm where he has worked the past eight years. While stressing his respect for Crow and its remaining staff, he said the relocation to Cushman & Wakefield is a great opportunity for him and his sales team. It is also a homecoming of sorts, given that Griffin worked at Cushman & Wakefield for nearly three years until 1993 when he joined Trammell Crow’s predecessor, Fallon Hines & O’Connor.
I’m looking forward to it, said Griffin, who begins his new position on Monday. I have a lot of old friends there, and I just think [Cushman & Wakefield] is the place that makes the most sense for me to be right now.
Among other things, Griffin said he has a strong relationship with both Cushman Chairman Arthur J. Mirante and the firm’s national president, Bruce Mosler. The New York City headquarters of the company is another plus, he said, given the Big Apple’s prominence in the investment capital market. I think that will be very helpful for what we’re doing, Griffin said.
In any event, the action establishes Cushman & Wakefield as the premier commercial sales house in the region while decimating Crow’s capabilities in that profitable specialty. It is the second major departure from the company this year, with four top leasing brokers leaving in June to form their own real estate services operation.
Calls to Trammell Crow officials were unreturned, but broker Robert B. Richards called the situation a great coup for Cushman & Wakefield. Richards is one of the quartet of Crow brokers who left this year, launching Richards Barry Joyce & Partners.
Rob and his group are among the most dominant sales teams in the country, and by attracting his team, I think Cushman & Wakefield is going to benefit greatly, said Richards. They are the best at what they do.
The recent resignations not only leave Trammell Crow in a more tenuous situation than when it began the year as one of Boston’s leading real estate companies, it exposes the pitfalls of buying a company whose assets are primarily its people. Crow paid an estimated $35 million for Fallon Hines & O’Connor in May 1998 to gain a foothold in Boston’s lucrative commercial real estate scene.
While there was a three-year clause that kept FH&O’s principals on board, many were surprised that Crow paid such a large sum without requiring a longer commitment from the staff. It now appears those concerns were warranted.
Other questions persist as well, including the fate of several hundred million dollars of real estate sales that Crow’s brokers were in the middle of negotiating. The firm, for example, was marketing 360 Newbury St., the new home of Virgin Atlantic Records, as well as 18 Tremont St., a prominent office building near Boston’s Government Center. Sources said upward of $300 million may have been in the sales pipeline when the resignations occurred.
Griffin’s team is on pace to break $1 billion in commercial sales in 2001, marking the third straight year they have reached that benchmark. Among the high-profile sales brokered by Crow this year are the $375 million sale of One Federal St. in Boston and a $213 million deal for nearby 99 High St., as well as the $163 million sale of the Arsenal on the Charles in Watertown to Harvard University.
