Reuveni latest in Corcoran-BHS jumps

Last month, former Corcoran Group senior vice president Shlomi Reuveni joined Brown Harris Stevens as senior managing director and executive vice president for the new development and marketing division. The move came only six months after four other Corcoran senior vice presidents — Wendy Maitland, Erin Boisson Aries, Wilbur Gonzalez and Reid Price — left for Brown Harris.

The spring exodus of the four executives included teams of 14 brokers, and Reuveni also brought his team of four top new residential agents. Most competitors agree that these two moves could have a significant impact on Brown Harris’ image and performance in marketing new developments.

“Brown Harris Stevens has always been pigeonholed as this sort of stodgy, old-boy, Upper East Side firm,” said an employee at one competitor. “Shlomi’s the first real big guy they got … sort of to get up with the times.”

The latest poaching dealt another blow to Corcoran’s new development division. In the past year, the firm was let go from three assignments: 55 Wall Street, Windsor Park at 100 West 58th Street and Tribeca Summit at 415 Greenwich Street, all later picked up by Prudential Douglas Elliman. Then in June, developer Andr Balazs fired Corcoran from the William Beaver House at 15 William Street and hired Core Group Marketing.

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One competitor says lingering confusion after the June 2005 merger between the Corcoran Group and the Sunshine Group has been partly to blame.

“There’s Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, Corcoran Group Marketing, the Sunshine Group … there’s no clear leadership,” the competitor said. A spokesperson for Corcoran did not return phone calls by press time.

Louise Phillips Forbes, executive vice president at Halstead Property, pointed to the marketing of William Beaver House, whose sex-infused campaign featured a cartoon beaver, as particularly misguided.

“I think the campaign of the Beaver House was a little over the top,” Forbes said. “It was certainly a conversation piece that for most of their target audience was a little distasteful.”

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