Commercial Property Firms Prove Hot Pickups

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West L.A.’s CBRE Group Inc. recently said it is pursuing “aggressive” acquisitions to grow its real estate business. With the company’s most recent deal, that investment now includes markets in the Southeast United States.

The company earlier this month picked up the commercial real estate services business of Atlanta’s Resource Realty Estate Partners LLC and TPA Realty Services LLC. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. CBRE did not acquire the firms’ development operations.

The deal adds 13 million square feet of office and industrial space to CBRE’s Atlanta property management. About 70 employees from the two firms will join CBRE, including industrial leasing and sales brokers, property managers, building engineers and support staff. The deal increases CBRE’s presence in the Southeast, primarily in the northeast Atlanta metro area.

“It’s serving some submarkets where we didn’t have as much presence as we needed,” said John Ferguson, CBRE’s executive managing director for the Southeast region.

The company will retain key personnel from businesses acquired from Resource and TPA.

“Both firms had good professionals that were complementary to our business,” Ferguson said. “They had a large property management portfolio that was very complementary to what we already had.”

CBRE is one of the largest commercial real estate services firms in the world and ranks highest in Los Angeles in the Business Journal’s list of commercial real estate brokerage companies.

Acquisitions have long been a key driver of the firm’s growth. It took over EA Shaw, a United Kingdom commercial and residential property partnership in November.

CBRE Chief Executive Bob Sulentic said at a December investor conference that mergers and acquisitions, including “infill M&A,” would remain an essential part of the firm’s expansion.

Ross Smotrich, an analyst at Barclays in New York who covers CBRE, said Sulentic is looking at more investment in organic growth, but acquisitions of businesses where they have room to grow will continue to be important.

“Pursuing the best talent, M&A activity, cost efficiency and margin leadership also remain paramount,” Smotrich wrote in a research report after the investor conference.

CBRE’s Atlanta office now has 705 employees, including 106 brokers. The office did $3.8 billion in sales and leasing transactions in 2011. It competes with companies such as Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., Cushman & Wakefield Inc. and Colliers International.

With the CBRE deal, Resource in Atlanta is transitioning away from its real estate services business.

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