Gary Phillips, head of acquisitions at Allianz Real Estate of America, is leaving the company and moving to Eastdil Secured, where he will serve as managing director for capital markets and real estate sales at the firm’s New York office, according to multiple industry sources.
Phillips had been with Allianz since 2011 and has also worked at Clarion Partners and Deutsche Bank. He recently helped lead a deal at Allianz to sell a 49 percent stake in the firm’s leasehold at 114 Fifth Avenue to Columbia Property Trust in a transaction valuing the property at $220 million.
News of Phillips’ move was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The news comes as Wells Fargo, Eastdil’s parent company, has been trying to offload the brokerage. The firm has also lost several top brokers in recent years. Newmark Knight Frank lured away its top hotel-sales team of Adam Etra, Mark Schoenholtz, Lawrence Wolfe and Miles Spencer in May, while Doug Harmon and Adam Spies left the firm in 2016 for Cushman & Wakefield.
Rumored buyers for Eastdil have included an overseas private equity firm and a sovereign wealth firm from the far east.
Meanwhile, Allianz is closing on a deal to take a roughly 30 percent stake in L&L Holding Company and Normandy Real Estate Partners’ massive Terminal Stores purchase. The companies bought the property in Chelsea for about $900 million earlier this year.