Savills Studley is beefing up its capital markets department, the latest in a string of poaches the industry has seen in recent months.
The brokerage hired CBRE sales brokers Paul Leibowitz and David Krantz, as well as former Cushman & Wakefield executive Michael Rotchford, Crain’s reported.
Rotchford will partner with longtime Savills Studley investment sales head Woody Heller to lead the new investment sales division. He’s also bringing along David Heller, who recently worked at the real estate investment firm Rotchford launched in 2015.
Rotchford, an expert in real estate finance who helped put together the sale of a stake in One World Trade Center in 2010, will be tasked with increasing Savills Studley’s footprint on the financial side of big-ticket deals. Leibowitz, who was considered a protégé of power broker Darcy Stacom, will help the firm gain ground with institutional investors.
Leibowitz worked on the 2006 sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village with Stacom, who recently lost another member of her team to Cushman & Wakefield.
Stacom, who renewed her contract for another five years at the start of the year , downplayed the idea that her team was losing talent.
“I’m very excited on a going forward basis,” she told Crain’s. “I like the market we’re in right now and our synergies with other professionals at the firm. We look forward to serving our clients.”
A spokesperson for CBRE said Stacom’s team still includes more than 20 professionals and continues to win big assignments, such as the market exclusive for Brookfield Property Partners’ 245 Park Avenue.
Savills Studley is getting in on the action after other major brokerages have been shaking up the playing field. In October, Cushman & Wakefield hired the city’s top-producing sales team of Doug Harmon and Adam Spies from Eastdil Secured.
And in December, Colliers International lured away the JLL investment sales team of Richard Baxter, Yoron Cohen and Scott Latham, who later brought along two of their colleagues. [Crain’s] – Rich Bockmann