(Read more on the debt and equity markets.)

LOS ANGELES-Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle has acquired locally based Zietsman Realty Partners Inc., a real estate investment banking firm headed by Michael Zietsman, in a move designed to augment the Chicago firm's growing capital markets group. Zietsman has become a managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle, located in the firm's Los Angeles office, with Zietsman and the other professionals of his firm now operating as part of JLL's capital markets group.

Zietsman has more than 23 years of experience and more than $8 billion of direct transaction experience with asset sales, joint ventures and financings. Jones Lang LaSalle says that the acquisition adds to its capabilities by bringing on "a team with strong relationships and a reputation for arranging complex office, retail and multifamily transactions involving institutional quality properties."

Earl Webb, chief executive officer of Jones Lang LaSalle's capital markets group, says that the acquisition reflects a strategy designed to gain a capital markets leadership position in the firm's top markets and to improve the level of service to clients. In the past 12 months, Jones Lang LaSalle has added 27 senior capital markets experts throughout the nation including 11 to the West Coast team, among them the Zietsman team.