The win returns Kathy Permenter and Russell S. Johnson Jr., senior vice president and vice president, respectively from CBRE, to Grubb & Ellis' team. Also moving over this week from CBRE were vice president Daniel Rudd and senior associate Billy Vahrenkamp.
[IMGCAP(2)]The battle for talent also produced Blake Anderson, a JLL/Staubach vice president who's a major player on the industrial circuit. In one fell swoop, Grubb & Ellis has added brokers with a combined transactional volume topping $900 million and 50-plus years of experience.
The region's CRE circuit witnessed another pull-out from JLL earlier this week: Dale Ray, its director of leasing since 2004 who became a principal at Peloton Real Estate Partners. JLL managing director Jim Yoder is backfilling the role for the investor services business, returning to the streets to oversee agency leasing, property management and coordination with the capital markets group.
The changing faces at brokerage houses could be just a sign of the times due to fallout from mergers, the slowdown in deals or a repositioning for the rebound, as was the case a few years ago. Among the big guns lost this summer was Tracy Fults, Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc.'s senior director of agency leasing, who reportedly is sizing up a plan to follow in his late father's footsteps and start his own real estate company. But for now, his spokesman says he's just taking a break from the daily grind.
"I can't imagine it's any different in Dallas than any other market. It's the same in Los Angeles. We were just in Houston and we heard rumblings of people moving around. It's just that time in the cycle," Sayres Dudley, founding partner of Dudley & Associates in Pasadena, CA, tells GlobeSt.com. "Anytime you have a merger, particularly with brokers, there's change. When people can't get deals done, you're going to have a lot of change."
Dudley, who heads up a three-city executive search firm, says the difference between this cycle and past ones is it's not related to overbuilding. Instead, he says the financial market slowdown had trickled over to the deal pipeline. The bottom line is brokers need space to lease so lease-ups and the construction retreat undoubtedly are sparking some job changes.
[IMGCAP(3)]The street's been speculating since Moody Younger's return as managing director of Texas that Permenter wouldn't be far behind. She, Johnson and Younger were teammates a few years back. The return move has put Permenter in as Grubb & Ellis' vice president and director of office leasing. Johnson too is on board as a vice president in the office group. Anderson and Rudd were named senior vice presidents while Vahrenkamp has started as an associate vice president.
Across the board, the sentiments were similar from executives at the companies they left. "We wish them the best in their future endeavors," says Blaire Oden, managing director of CB Richard Ellis in Dallas.
John Gates, the new president of brokerage for the Americas for the Chicago-based JLL, echoes the good wishes for Anderson, a 12-year veteran who spent at least five years at Staubach. "He was fun to work with," he adds.
And from JLL's office team, Yoder says "we thank Dale for his contributions to Jones Lang LaSalle and we wish him well."
Ray says there's a mixed bag of reasons for the rash of personnel shifts. "Everyone has to find their place where they feel comfortable," he says. "Folks look when there are changes and they have to reevaluate and look where they are. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the firm." As for his change, the 20-year veteran says it simply was the chance to own a piece of the company.
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