From left in both pictures: YJP panelists Charles Cohen, Bruce Mosler, Eric Hadar and Jason Muss take to the stage (moderator David Bolen center in right picture)

Brokerage commission models have been making it into headlines and conversations a lot lately, and last night was no exception.

At a real estate summit hosted by the Young Jewish Professionals at the McGraw Hill Building on West 42nd Street, Bruce Mosler, chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, waxed lyrical on the downsides of lowering commissions to attract clients, saying it turned reputable firms into “discount brokerages.” [more]

Bruce Mosler

Bruce Mosler, chairman of Global Brokerage for Cushman & Wakefield, has been appointed as chair of the new Executive Education Advisory Board of the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the institution announced today.

“I am very pleased to expand my commitment to Wharton, to engage the educators and business leaders who are addressing the leadership challenges of the new economy and to improve our collective impact on business and society,” Mosler, a Wharton alumnus, said in a statement. – Miranda Neubauer [more]

From left: Architect Costas Kondylis and Princess Katherine Karadjordjevic, developer Donald Trump, the Corcoran Group’s Pamela Liebman, Town’s Andrew Heiberger and wife Robyn, and marketing guru Louise Sunshine (credit: Clint Spaulding of patrickmcmullan.com). Click the image to see more photos.

Developer Donald Trump, who spent weeks courting the fringes of American politics in a possible presidential bid, stuck to real estate last night in brief remarks at the premier of a documentary produced by The Real Deal about the prolific and aging New York architect Costas Kondylis. (See more photos after the jump.)

Trump, who traveled the United States questioning President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, praised Kondylis — born in Africa to Greek parents — as a “great design architect.”

Kondylis was the architect on many of Trump’s buildings such as the Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza and an imposing row of residential towers that were critically panned called Riverside South, which face the Hudson River. [more]

Real estate education guru Esther Muller and Cushman & Wakefield Chairman Bruce Mosler will be honored later this month at the Mann Foundation’s sixth annual Mann of the Year Awards reception at Cipriani 42nd Street. Muller, an author, continuing education coach and director of Touro College’s entrepreneurial real estate program, is Mann’s residential real estate honoree this year. Mosler, who served as Cushman’s CEO until last year, is the commercial real estate honoree. Proceeds from the awards, which are scheduled for April 25, go to the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Mount Sinai. TRD

Former Cushman & Wakefield CEOs Bruce Mosler (from 2005 to 2010) and Arthur Mirante (from 1984 to 2005) say the vying among brokerage firms to handle leasing for owners is beginning to look like the boom years, in part because of the renewed sales activity that often leads to a new landlord representative. 

While the two brokers have created a 14-person team to manage leasing for about 4 million square feet in Manhattan, they say in an interview with Insights from The Real Deal (see video above) they could nearly double that.

“I would think our team could probably handle 5 to 7 million square feet of agencies in Manhattan. And do so without overstepping our punt coverage,” Mirante, president of global client development, said, using a football comparison. The team also handles investment sales and tenant-side leasing, he said.

He and Mosler, chairman of global brokerage, spoke about their leasing agency work, Cushman’s loss of the team led by Mitchell Konsker and Paul Glickman to Jones Lang LaSalle, and the firm’s return to profitability in the fourth quarter.
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From left: Bruce Mosler and Arthur Mirante

[Updated at 12:30, with comment from Cushman & Wakefield] Bruce Mosler and Arthur Mirante, two former CEOs of commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, have partnered to form a new brokerage team within the company, Real Estate Weekly reported. Mosler had served as Cushman’s CEO for five years before returning to brokerage last year, when he was named chairman of global brokerage at the company. Mirante was Cushman’s CEO for almost two decades before recruiting Mosler to join the firm in the mid-2000s to succeed him. A statement from Cushman said that Mosler will remain with the company as chairman of global brokerage. [more]

Bruce Mosler

From the December issue: Bruce Mosler was the president and CEO of Cushman & Wakefield from 2005 until March of this year, when former Centro CEO Glenn Rufrano took over. Mosler became co-chairman of the firm, and next month he’ll transition to chairman of global brokerage. In this edition of “the Closing,” Mosler talks about balancing family and business, his years studying in Switzerland and why he made a terrible student. Additionally, Mosler opens up about tensions with his father and why his family didn’t come first when he started out in the business world. [more]

Bruce Mosler and 1290 Sixth Avenue

Bruce Mosler has announced that starting in January, he will no longer be co-chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, a position he assumed in March after stepping down as CEO. Instead, he will become chairman of global brokerage, Mosler told The Real Deal today in an interview at his 1290 Sixth Avenue office. “In January, I am going to return to brokerage full-time as chairman of global brokerage,” said Mosler, who got his start as a real estate broker at Newmark Knight Frank. [more]

From left, Lee Feld and Bruce Mosler (credit: Kaufman Center) and 1285 Sixth Avenue (credit: PropertyShark)

In the third-largest leasing deal of the year, global advertising group BBDO Worldwide signed a renewal lease for 360,000 square feet at its headquarters at 1285 Sixth Aven [more]

Rivals CBRE and Jones Lang reported profits in the same period

Glenn Rufrano

The red ink slowed in the second quarter for the world’s third-largest commercial services firm Cushman & Wakefie [more]