Top Cushman I-banking broker jumps to Savills Studley

Louis Wolfowitz specializes in real estate finance

Louis Wolfowitz
Louis Wolfowitz

The commercial broker poaching wars aren’t over, not by a long shot. Louis Wolfowitz, the head of investment banking at Cushman & Wakefield [TRDataCustom], has jumped ship to competitor Savills Studley.

Wolfowitz, 52, joins a number of other experts in real estate finance recently brought on by Studley, Crain’s reported. The firm recently hired two investment sales brokers from CBRE, Paul Leibowitz and David Krantz. The firm also hired former Cushman & Wakefield executives David Heller and Michael Rotchford.

Rotchford, who headed investment banking before Wolfowitz got the job, left Cushman in 2015 with Heller to start an advisory and investment firm, RP Capital. It’s not clear how much business RP Capital did before the pair joined Studley.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

While at Cushman, Wolfowitz helped arrange Boston Properties’ net lease of an Metropolitan Transportation Authority-owned building at 347 Madison Avenue.

Both residential and commercial brokerages in the city have been actively poaching from competitors, though the drama of top agent stealing is usually associated with the former. In December, The Real Deal published a roundup of the top broker moves of the year. [Crain’s] — Kathryn Brenzel