Shifting Tides in Hub Capital Markets Brings Colliers Crew to CBRE

October 30, 2018 — By Joe Clements

Financial District, Boston MA Photo: Derek Szabo

BOSTON—Representing a major shift in the region’s investment sales landscape, a half-dozen Capital Markets professionals at Colliers International have joined rival CBRE, sources are telling therealreporter.com. “That is true, yes,” one industry professional agrees when asked of industry buzz surrounding the move.

The migrating contingent in question is led by veterans Scott Dragos and Douglas Jacoby and also features team members Anthony Hayes, Timothy Mulhall, Daniel Hines and Lindsey Hmura. Calls to Jacoby were not returned by press deadline, and efforts to contact Colliers International regarding the changes were not immediately successful. Despite any official confirmation, informed sources say the six are now operating from CBRE offices at 99 High St., one of two locations in downtown Boston for the firm which earlier this year bought out the local Transwestern Boston group, infusing CBRE with dozens of talented brokers and support personnel, that deal first unveiled by Real Reporter.

Market watchers claim CBRE had been shopping for more capital markets personnel in a bid to increase its regional share, the firm a dominant player in the multifamily brokerage arena said to be looking to broaden its activities in other sectors including industrial, office and retail, arenas the company has handled several top assignments for but which are expected to grow in lockstep with the region’s continued economic gains. CBRE managing principal Steve Purpura did not return a call to discuss his company’s intentions or strategies regarding the hires.

The Colliers professionals coming aboard scored a number of high-profile listings in their tenure at the venerable firm, a period that lasted approximately five years. That would include the $279.6 million sale of a state-owned office building at Government Center to Intercontinental Real Estate in 2015; trade of the Boston Globe headquarters to Nordblom Co. for $84 million; and a surplus property owned for decades by Gillette Corp., that 2018 harvesting of a Seaport District infill site fetching $11.5 million and creating a stir at the time regarding the seller’s future in the area, a matter of concern ultimately dismissed as an isolated divestment.

CBRE’s Capital Markets crew has also brokered multiple transactions of substance this decade, most recently as exclusive agents in the $63.8 million sale of a first-class office project in Watertown where the group advised seller Spear Street Capital and procured the buyer, an investment team featuring homegrown Paradigm Properties and Chicago investor, GEM Realty. The deal that closed two weeks ago was first announced by Real Reporter in August.

Other members of the CBRE team in that listing were Christopher Skeffington, John Eder and Sara Forino. Observers could not say how the division will be structured but indicate Dragos and Jacoby have joined as Executive VPs. “It’s a great platform to be working for,” one market watcher tracking the changes says of CBRE, that source also describing the departure from Colliers as “amicable” on the part of both sides. “It is just the way the market is today,” the CRE veteran says of the climate that has seen several personnel changes over the past 24 months among industry titans.

UPDATE: In a statement provided Real Reporter after the initial posting of this article, Colliers Internatonal principal David Amsterdam relayed that “Investment sales are more dynamic now than ever and our 17-member multi-disciplinary capital markets team in Boston continues to seamlessly execute transactions on behalf of our clients.” Amsterdam made the statement in his capacity as President of Investments, Leasing and the Eastern Region. The departing professionals were not mentioned by name.