Others see the deal as another victory for Farkas, who heads up Island Capital and formed Insignia Financial Group, which became one of the largest commercial real estate services companies in the world when it merged with CB Richard Ellis in 2003. In March 2010, C-III commenced operations with the purchase of Centerline Capital Group’s institutional real estate debt fund management and commercial mortgage loan servicing businesses. In total, C-III has approximately $150 billion in assets in portfolio.

From a legal perspective, Stuart Saft, global chair of real estate for International law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, tells GlobeSt.com that the C-III/NAI acquisition will set a precedent for future special servicing deals. “From Farkas’ point-of-view, he is now doing on a global scale what he did with regard to Insignia,” Saft says. “He put a lot of small companies or smaller companies in real estate and built a behemoth with it. He’s now doing the same thing with NAI. I think it’s a brilliant and bold strategic move to create this global marketplace.”

Under the pending acquisition, NAI Global will continue to operate as a separate company under its current management, which is seen as a strategic play by Farkas to build up a broker company and sell it to a larger entity as a means to streamline business operations. “It is really a result of everything that happened three or four years ago with regard to securitized financing and structured debt,” Saft says. “What we learned is that a lot of the financial products were so sliced and diced that it was virtually impossible for anybody to figure out how to put them all together again when the problems began to develop. I think the direction we are heading in is a limited number of very large servicing enterprises that have the in-house ability to deal with all these financial calamities that effect real estate.”

The deal is also a sign that smaller brokers are trying to figure out how to survive in a competitive global marketplace, but at the same time, private equity firms are trying to earn more fees and maximize profits by getting into the brokerage business, unnamed sources in the capital markets community say.

But Saft says the convergence should result in an uptick in deal-making. “In the last three months, the quiet period has disappeared entirely,” he says. “It is now one deal after another. I think what we are seeing with regard to these global companies and these financial institutions cleaning up their books and being able to lend again, is this realization that we have survived the market crash and it’s time to move forward. You will see prices start to increase marketability, and I think what Farkas has done here is just another indication of that we are well into the recovery.”

Though financial terms were not disclosed, the final transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011. C-III, NAI Global and CBRE all declined to comment to GlobeSt.com for this report.