SEATTLE-Colliers International has added 14 veteran brokers to its San Jose, Redwood City and Sacramento offices. All but one of the new hires are joining the firm from Grubb & Ellis, which is being purchased by BGC Partners Inc. after Grubb & Ellis filed for bankruptcy protection.
“We filled important niches, added experience as well as youth to our ranks, and most importantly, we added some fine individuals who fit our culture like a glove,” says Jeff Fredericks, managing partner of Colliers’ downtown San Jose office.
The San Jose office has added four agents including investment-sales specialist Mark Bruening, his associate Drew Brown, industrial/R&D leasing and sales professional John Serex and financial-services and asset-management consultant Howard Berry—all formerly with Grubb & Ellis. “I am very excited to join a professional team with an extensive amount of talent, expertise and tools for their brokers and clients,” says Serex. “Colliers International is a first-class organization that provides a great atmosphere to succeed for everyone that works here.”
Fredericks tells GlobeSt.com that the hiring of so many brokers at once was “really opportunistic with so many of [Grubb & Ellis’s] agents being in the market. Since it was split over three offices, it wasn’t too many in any one office, and the motivations were different among the offices. For us here in San Jose, they were a good niche fit to some areas where we were looking to improve.”
The company’s Redwood City office, which services the San Francisco Peninsula market, added Mike Kennedy, a former independent broker/developer whose focus is on representing emerging tech and venture-capital companies. In addition, former Grubb & Ellis industrial leasing and sales specialists Mike Davis, J.P. Custodio, Michael Draeger and Aaron Levinger have joined the Colliers Peninsula office. “Colliers International is a top-notch firm that will allow us to expand our business and service all of our clients’ needs,” says Davis. “My team and I are extremely excited to expand the industrial platform on the San Francisco Peninsula.”
The team hired for the Redwood City office was a “solid industrial team, and they were looking to build their industrial group in that marketplace,” Fredericks tells GlobeSt.com.
Colliers also recently hired five former Grubb & Ellis brokers for its Sacramento office: owner-representation specialist Tom Walcott, office-sales and -leasing broker Kris Reilly, landlord-representative and investment-sales broker Jason Rutherford, office specialist Scott Bennett and landlord- and tenant-representative Ken Johnson.
“This high-profile team filled not only a niche within the market, but gave that office a strong market presence,” Fredericks tells Globest.com.
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Carrie Rossenfeld
Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.
