BOSTON—Sperry Van Ness, in conjunction with the recent launch of its new brand name "SVN," is accelerating its global growth plans in 2016, president and CEO Kevin Maggiacomo tells Globest.com.
"We opened 50 (new) offices in 24 months. You are going to see that growth rate accelerate markedly," Maggiacomo says. "We are reinvesting even further in our growth."
SVN added 25 offices nationally and internationally this year and now has more than 1,400 advisors and staff in nearly 200 offices around the world. He says that the company is looking to have broader and deeper coverage in the primary and coastal markets domestically. "You will see an expanded presence in the 'A' markets throughout the United States," he says.
He adds that the company plans to significantly expand operations internationally as well next year. In the past 18 months, Sperry Van Ness Commercial Real Estate Advisors opened offices in Canada, Russia and Mexico. "We will announce expansions into the Middle East and Western Europe in the first quarter of 2016. Then we will launch a very aggressive expansion to further build out Latin America and then move south to South America followed by Asia and subcontinent India in 2016 in the third and fourth quarters," he reveals.
In total, Maggiacomo says SVN will add approximately 35 offices in six countries in 2016.
Among its key deals in 2015, SVN announced the addition of Sperry Van Ness/Parsons Commercial Group Boston in July. Maggiacomo says the firm does not plan further growth in Boston in 2016. In October, SVN and Rock Advisors, one of Canada's leading brokerage firms, launched Sperry Van Ness/Rock Advisors. The company maintains three offices in Toronto, Burlington and in Ottawa.
Another key initiative SVN plans this year is a significant reinvestment in training of management and its commercial real estate advisors. Solomon Poretsky, executive vice president, organizational development, heads the company's two major training programs SVN Elite and SVN System for Growth. The System for Growth is an intensive multi-platform training program that covers sales and the technical aspects of real estate, such as underwriting and lease analysis. The SVN Elite program is geared towards training managing directors (franchisees) to run sustainable and more efficiently run businesses.
In terms of the brand name change to SVN, Maggiacomo, who was appointed president and CEO in 2010, says the change was made to reflect the company's evolution from its founding in 1987 as a Southern California-based regional investment sales firm to the global commercial services franchise firm it is today that offers 14 different product lines. The company beginning in 2001 decided to change its corporate structure to an affiliate and eventually to a franchise structure and expand operations to the East Coast and eventually internationally. The company relocated its headquarters to Boston in 2013.
"We have been growing services and offices internationally and are transitioning to a name that will be easily recognizable around the world, while remaining true to the values that make our people, our platform and our purpose so unique," says Maggiacomo, "We've been calling ourselves SVN for decades and our web domain has always been svn.com, so making SVN our official name is very natural."
The SVN brand name and new logo will roll out globally over the next 12-18 months.
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John Jordan
John Jordan is a veteran journalist with 36 years of print and digital media experience.
