Compass SoCal boss Nick Segal steps down

Nick Segal is stepping down as co-president of Compass’s Southern California division after 16 months on the job, The Real Deal has learned.

Segal, who led Compass in the region since it acquired Pacific Union International in August 2018, confirmed his resignation in a phone interview Thursday, noting he will stay at Compass as an agent.

Mark McLaughlin, who also joined Compass from Pacific Union, will now split time as president in Compass’s Northern California and Southern California headquarters, Segal said, while Kamani Lane will continue in her role as the company’s Southern California co-president.

Segal initially took the president’s job, he said, to ease the transition of 140 Pacific Union staffers who joined Compass last year.

“I wanted to make sure to take care of and protect my people, and I did what I had to do,” he said.

Segal noted that the integration process was a massive undertaking, and a struggle at times given the different company ethos. “We had our own nomenclature,” he said of Pacific Union.

Still, Segal praised Compass for giving him the resources he needed, and stressed that his resignation was amicable. A former actor and nephew of acclaimed actor George Segal, he worked as an agent at Sotheby’s International Realty before starting Partners Trust in 2009. The firm was acquired by Pacific Union as part of an acquisition spree in which the San Francisco-based firm also absorbed John Aaroe Group and Gibson International.

Segal’s move is the latest shakeup for Compass, a New York City-headquartered brokerage which hit the Los Angeles market in 2015 and used its venture capital to pick up top talent as well as rival firms. Stan Richman, the brokerage’s first high-profile outside hire out west, stepped down as as regional vice-president in 2017.

Compass, valued at $6.4 billion after its Series G fundraising round in July, has recently closed two offices in Hancock Park and Brentwood. Its sky-high valuation, by far the highest among residential firms, has been questioned in the wake of the WeWork debacle, with critics asking whether it has a clear path to profitability and whether its technology really is a competitive advantage.

Segal made mention of the Brentwood office closure as an effort by Compass to reduce the firm’s “many moving parts.”