CBRE Returns to Big Board Today

NEW YORK CITY-CB Richard Ellis is back on the big board. After a three-year sojourn in the private sector, the Los Angeles-based firm will start trading this morning on the New York Stock Exchange. Individual shares of class A common stock in the company, which posted revenues of $1.6 billion in 2003, are priced at $19. CBRE will trade under the ticker symbol CBG.The $150-million IPO prospectus was filed in mid-February. The document indicated that net proceeds of the offering would go to redeeming “the remaining $38.3 million aggregate principal amount of our 16% senior notes due 2011.” The offering included newly issued shares being offered by the company and secondary shares offered by affiliates of Blum Capital Partners LP.According to a statement issued this morning, the company “expects to receive net proceeds, before its out-of-pocket expenses, of approximately $138 million as a result of the offering.” CBRE “will not receive any of the proceeds from the shares sold by the selling stockholders.”The offering was made though an underwriting syndicate led by Credit Suisse First Boston LLC and Citigroup Global Markets Inc., acting as joint book-running managers. JP Morgan Securities Inc.; Lehman Brothers Inc.; Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.; Goldman, Sachs & Co.; and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. were co-managers. Market watchers will remember that in July of 2001, CB Richard Ellis went private via a merger with Blum CB Corp., a unit of Blum Capital, in a much-publicized $800-million deal. The stock at the time of the transaction was valued at $16 per share. But remaining in the private arena was never considered a permanent situation, as industry insiders explained to GlobeSt.com at the time of the IPO. “Even if you look at comments made at the time of the Insignia acquisition, CBRE always maintained that there could be an opportune time to tap the public equity markets again,” one source stated. “It’s all a matter of timing.”Blum remains a major investor, with 42% of the pie, although a much sweeter pie it is. In its private period, of course, CB Richard Ellis acquired Insignia/ESG in a deal valued at $431 million. The firm, post-merger boasts nearly 13,500 employees in 48 countries. By comparison, Cushman & Wakefield, according to a statement released yesterday, has flags in the same number of countries but projects 2004 revenues to be $900 million. That larger CBRE pie also embraces an approximate three-for-one stock split of outstanding class A and B common shares, according to the prospectus.Still in a quiet a period, no executives from CBRE would speak to GlobeSt.com.