Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.’s buy of Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co. is turning into a big hiring opportunity for the local office of Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
The commercial real estate company just lured away workers from the Southern California capital markets operations of Trammell Crow, which had been based in Irvine.
$1.6B in Deals
The five-person capital markets team, led by former Trammell Crow executive vice presidents Jeffrey Cole and Richard Putnam, was responsible for more than $1.6 billion in investment sales to private and institutional investors last year.
They’ll be based in Cushman’s Irvine office, focusing on Southern California and West Coast areas.
The news comes a week after Cushman hired Eric Hinkelman, a former managing director for the Irvine office of Trammell Crow, to be its senior managing director and branch manager of the company’s Orange County operations.
The latest hires should give a boost to Cushman’s recently formed Southern California capital markets group, which kicked off operations last week.
The group sells properties for pension funds, real estate investment trusts and large, privately held asset managers.
The former Trammell Crow team, which also includes Ed Hernandez, Baker Morphy and Gloria Duenas, will handle sales of office and industrial buildings that typically run $20 million or more, Cole said.
The group has done deals totaling more than 200 million square feet during the past eight years.
Recent Deals
Recent local deals include October’s $26.4 million sale of the 1401 Dove St. office building in Newport Beach, previously the headquarters of Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc., for Newport Beach-based KBS Realty Advisors LLC.
The team will all be partners in the new institutional capital markets group, said Cole, who has been with Trammell Crow and a predecessor company,Tooley & Co.,since 1986.
He is chairman of the Newport Beach Planning Commission, and a former president of the local chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties.
Putnam has been with Trammell Crow since 1988.
CB Richard Ellis had pushed hard to keep the team, which had seen interest from several local companies, following its deal with Trammell Crow, Cole said.
Cushman isn’t the only local real estate company looking to grab Trammell Crow’s OC employees.
A number of brokers have moved offices in recent weeks, according to sources. The local office of Voit Commercial Brokerage LP has grabbed about five ex-Trammell Crow brokers, sources said.
