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What’s the latest with the Cushman-Massey marriage?: VIDEO
LoRusso, Knakal and Massey discuss the coming together of the two commercial giants
Cushman & Wakefield’s acquisition of Massey Knakal Realty Services for a reported $100 million was the talk of the town at the end of last year. Now, nearly three months into the marriage, some of the consolidated firm’s leaders – Ron LoRusso, Bob Knakal and Paul Massey – discussed the changes at Cushman and the challenges of coming together.
Speaking at a Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) New York event, Knakal said the territory system, made it very difficult for Massey Knakal to hire people from other firms, “because folks who were able to do anything, anywhere with anybody at any time, would have to suddenly get involved in a very disciplined system.” Still, the pros of the system far outweigh the cons, he indicated, and he gave credit to Cushman for understanding the benefits of the system and making it the standard for debt and investment sales transactions in the consolidated firm.
Knakal, Massey and LoRusso discuss the MK/CW deal at CREW. from Bob Knakal on Vimeo.
Retail and office leasing would not fall under the territory system, LoRusso said.
“There’s $60 billion of properties that trade every year in New York,” Massey said. “There’s $90 billion of loans that are placed. So we’re all just about the positive.”
Asked to describe some of the challenges of being part of Cushman, Massey quipped that for the first time in 30 years, he had a boss, gesturing to LoRusso.
“I pity the guy,” he joked.