Five Staubach Brokers Move to Studley

SAN FRANCISCO-A team of five office brokers has left the local franchise of Dallas-based Staubach for the local office of New York City-based Studley. Two of the brokers–Steve Barker and Kevin Brennan–will co-manage Studley’s branch office as executive vice presidents of the 18-office tenant rep firm. Barker and Brennan were principals and shareholders of the local Staubach office and are still negotiating their exit agreements. Barker tells GlobeSt.com he believes Studley will allow the team to “better service clients and generate more business.” In particular, he says the team liked Studley’s “unified corporate structure” and “significant strength” in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, DC—centers of commerce with close ties to the San Francisco marketplace. In addition, according to other sources, Barker and Brennan are now substantial shareholders of a national company generating $200 million in annual revenue as opposed to shareholders of a local office generating less than 10% of that total. In addition, Barker, Brennan and the rest of the team will receive commission splits that are 10% to 15% better than Staubach, as well as an incentive package that will help with the transition. Studley’s vice chair and head of West Coast operations Jacque Ducharme–who has been doubling as branch manager of that office for four years now–says Barker and Brennan are now two of 35 or 40 shareholders in the company, which pools its profits nationally and then redistributes them to the various offices. “If we are a profitable company, they will get their proportionate share for being branch manager, not only based on how their office did but also how the entire company did,” says Ducharme.Brennan opened Staubach’s San Francisco office in 1999, serving as director of the company’s corporate services group. Prior to that, Brennan was with Jones Lang Wooten (now Jones Lang LaSalle). Barker began his career in the Los Angeles office of Studley and worked for the firm for nine years before personal reasons forced a move to San Francisco, where he joined Staubach. In addition to Barker and Brennan, Studley’s new team includes Matt Hart, Aaron Wright, Michael McCandless and Greg Covey. The team has represented such clients as Booz Allen Hamilton; Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe; Kirkland & Ellis; Morgan Stanley; and the LVMH companies, and garnered 25% market share for tenant assignments of 20,000 sf and above. “We’ll miss these guys and wish them the best,” says Staubach’s San Francisco based senior vice president and principal Harry Schoening. “There have been an unusually high number of brokers changing firms recently; we have added an exceptionally strong team to our East Bay office headed by former Cushman & Wakefield leader Tom Maloney, and consider our Bay Area regional team to be stronger today than six months ago.”