CB poaches more top talent

Real Estate Weekly, July 31, 2002 by Parke Chapman

Real estate firms are on the alert after CB Richard Ellis stormed Cushman & Wakefield last week, hiring top sales brokers Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan. The dynamic duo reportedly couldn't resist a seven-figure signing bonus, something that CBRE has been using to great advantage recently. Mary Ann Tighe, formerly top broker at Insignia, is using her $120 million budget to aggressively recruit top brokers--and there are likely to be more high-level defections before summer is out.

But Cushman & Wakefield apparently has an answer to CBRE's poaching campaign. According to a real estate source, CB Richard Ellis broker Scott Latham is prepared to leave the firm for Cushman & Wakefield. An announcement could be made this week, said the source. Latham, the head of CBRE"s Investment Properties Group, is responsible for selling over $1 billion worth of commercial real estate in New York City over the past year.

As for CBRE's newest hires Stacom and Shanahan, both held senior level positions at the firm where they sold over $10 billion of commercial real estate between the two of them.

The announcement comes two weeks after Tighe took the helm as president of CB Richard Ellis' New York region. Since Tighe took over CBRE's New York operation, the poaching campaign has proceeded full-throttle.

"Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan are two of the industry's most accomplished investment sales professionals, and we are thrilled with the leadership, talent and vision they bring to GB Richard Ellis," said Tighe, president and Chief Executive of the firm's New York region office.

Stacom and Shanahan will run CBRE's investment properties unit, which focuses on building sales, finance and capital markets advisory services.

"It looks like Mary Ann is now hiring the worker bees. These aren't people who can accurately be called rainmakers. She's bringing in the workhorses now," said a real estate source.

The team closed over $1 billion worth of advisory and sales transactions for Cushman & Wakefield last year alone. For Stacom, the move is somewhat startling as both her sister and father work for Cushman & Wakefield.

Stacom, who garnered the title "queen of the skyscrapers" by the Wall Street Journal, was Cushman & Wakefield's biggest global producer for two of the past three years.

"Cushman & Wakefield has a very deep bench. But we will recuit at a moment when there is a lot of flux in the industry. All I can say is stay tuned," said Bruce Mosler, president of US operations at Cushman & Wakefield.

Lawrence Fiedler, a professor at New York University's Real Estate Institute, sees CBRE expanding into other areas of the real estate services business.

"They'll continue to hire division heads from other well established firms. I see them hiring someone from appraisal, finance and probably property management too," said Fiedler. He predicts that more Cushman & Wakefield staffers may follow Stacom and Shanahan, and other firms should also be on guard for similar defections.

"CB Richard Ellis is on a tear, and I see Stacom's clients following her there," said Fiedler, who sees Stacom as a rainmaker in her own right.