Savills Studley sees leadership shakeup, string of promotions

Savills Studley’s COO has stepped down, marking one of several recent personnel changes at the brokerage.

Former CFO Al Petrillo will take on the role as COO, and John Pantazis is trading his COO title for executive vice president and director as he readies for retirement, the Commercial Observer reported. A new CFO hasn’t officially been named, but Vic Russo, senior vice president of finance, will take on Pantazis’ duties.

Savills Studley also promoted Patrick McGrath to CIO and head of client technologies. At the same time, the brokerage promoted 87 professionals throughout the U.S. Thirty-nine were made vice chairman (17 of which are based in New York City).

One broker source told the Observer that the promotions may be an attempt to hold onto talent. In January, Newmark lured two top producing managers from Savills Studley’s Downtown and West Los Angeles offices, Bill Bauman and Kyle Miller. Savills Studley CEO Mitchell Steir said this wasn’t the motivation.

“The vice chairman promotions is because if you look around at our peer group you’ll notice that there are hundreds of vice chairman that are employed and we have had none,” he said. “So, the fact that we haven’t had any has been the anomaly.”

In The Real Deal’s most recent ranking of the top investment sales firms in the city, Savills came in 39th with just $47.9 million in deal volume. [CO] —Kathryn Brenzel