Gosin: NGKF can break into top three in U.S.

UPDATED, 11:40 a.m., January 27: Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s chief executive officer Barry Gosin believes that the firm can be among the country’s top three commercial brokerages.

Speaking from the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Gosin said that NGKF had aggressively expanded following its acquisition by BGC Partners and was poised for continued national growth.

NGKF still has a long way to go, however. CBRE Group leads the pack, with $4.95 billion in global revenue for the first nine months of 2013, according to the Wall Street Journal. Jones Lang LaSalle is next on the list with $2.95 billion in global revenue, followed by Cushman & Wakefield with $1.66 billion in global revenue. In comparison, NGKF’s U.S. revenues during the same time period were $401.3 million. U.S.-only revenues for CBRE, JLL and Cushman weren’t immediately available.

Still, since the BGC acquisition, NGKF has acquired other high-profile firms such as Grubb & Ellis in 2012 and Northern California bigwig Cornish & Carey Commercial last week. Chuck Seufferlein, Cornish & Carey’s chief executive, told the newspaper that NGKF is already scoping out acquisitions in Seattle, Portland and San Diego.

Analysts told the newspaper that NGKF needs to boost the portion of of its revenue that comes from “recurring” sources such as consulting and property management. The firm currently rakes in a large portion of its revenue from deal-related services such as brokerage – activities that can come to a standstill during a downturn. [WSJ] – Hiten Samtani