GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: CBRE to Beef Up Corporate Consulting Division

NEW YORK CITY-Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis is apparently offering shelter to a group of consultants from scandal-torn Arthur Andersen, adding to the list of Andersen refugees finding safe haven in other harbors. But industry sources tell GlobeSt.com that CBRE was the port of last resort for the at-sea consulting team, which, they say, has been turned away from virtually every major brokerage house since Andersen’s legal woes began.

“These guys have been shopping themselves for two months, and they’ve been turned down by everyone,” the source tells GlobeSt.com. He mentions Ernst & Young, Grubb & Ellis and Cushman & Wakefield as initial targets for their spurned advances.

While Cushman & Wakefield insiders tell GlobeSt.com that they have heard of no such advances, Barry Barovick, president and CEO of Grubb & Ellis, says the band of refugees came to Grubb first. “We said no,” Barovick tells GlobeSt.com. “They are not the right people for what we need to do.”