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And on the leasing and sales front, a flurry of deals are happening all over the world. This year alone, C&W advised on two of the largest property sales in Hong Kong (Monterey Court in Jardine Lookout and Kowloon Commercial Center in Kowloon); arranged the $610 million sale of 100 Federal Street Tower in Boston on behalf of Bank of America; represented Salesforce.com in the largest long-term office lease signed in San Francisco in a decade; arranged the largest US suburban build-to-suit on record on behalf of Green Mountain Coffee; and represented luxury retailers Burberry and Tom Ford in establishing flagship stores in Hong Kong and the UK.

GlobeSt.com sat down with Rufrano to chat about what’s in the pipeline.

GlobeSt.com: This year the company has made some recent notable acquisitions (like Cousins' third party group) and executed key partnerships (like with Pacific Commercial Realty Advisors.) Is this part of a greater strategy to expand the brand?

Rufrano: When we last talked, we spoke about our four initiatives the globalizing of management and then the consistent service mix. The first part of that is where we brought in a lot of new people. If we took Cousins as an example, property management acquisition, and that’s in our corporate occupier and investor services business line – CIS is the acronym we use. We now have a person who is in charge of the globe, John Santora, who has someone in charge of the Americas, and we can strategize globally about where we can expand the company. With that organization in place, the second initiative becomes operative. We decided we needed around the globe more property management.

We’ve actually done quite an expansive set of hiring’s in Europe where we’ve increased property management quite a bit. In the United States, we had been hiring people and then Cousins comes along and it’s a public REIT and they went public and said “we are going to focus on our main business” which is owning and operating office buildings and we are not going to manage buildings for third parties because that is not what we are really paid for.

Our shareholders want us to focus as a principal, so we are going to simplify ourselves by selling that business. For us, that was terrific because we wanted a bigger footprint in Atlanta and a bigger footprint in Dallas. We can now look down and ask how do we create a consistent service mix. In some cases we hire people, and all we did here instead of hiring 128 people, we bought them. It’s the same thing. We can hire people or acquire a small company, and at the end of the day, what we’ve really done is create more consistency on how we service our clients, in this case, property management. It is a strategy that allows us to acquire or hire, but at the end of the day, we brought in the right people and the right contracts. Cousins became a great opportunity for us. It’s a way for us to grow under our second initiative, but always under the umbrella of understanding where we want to be around the globe with global management.

GlobeSt.com: C&W's operating income increased by $1.2 million in Q2. What was this the result of?

Rufrano: In the first quarter, because we had been investing, we had more expenses in the first quarter, but we had less expenses in the second quarter. Over time, they even out. Our revenue in the second quarter was a little higher than the first quarter, so we had better revenue in the second quarter, we had less expenses and more profits. The only thing I would caution, because when I was a public CEO, everybody looks quarterly, and that’s the way the market works. As a real estate person or as a person running a company you never look quarterly. If you think quarterly, you really are in a lot of trouble. Our business has to have a strategy, time to execute and so, it’s a longer-term business. But we are here for 2013, 2014 and 2015, so we are going to look longer term to make sure that we build the business the way we want to build it.

GlobeSt.com: Talking about ’13, do you think the increase in lease renewals will continue into the new year? Or will moves pick up after the election?

Rufrano: Decision makers like some level of certainty and understanding the future when making decisions, and it is harder today. It’s harder because of the election, it’s harder because of some issues in Europe, it’s harder because of employment trends. But as a businessperson, you take it all and must it together and say ‘look, I have a business to run and what are we going to do? I can’t do nothing, and that’s the worst thing you can do. So decisions do get made, but they are being made slower, and there is no doubt about that.

GlobeSt.com: Now the big question: is C&W for sale?

Rufrano: When I was a public CEO, if you ask any public CEO that question, they could only give you one answer – I represent the shareholders, and if there is a compelling offer for this company, I have no choice but to look at it. Any CEO who gives you a different answer? They should fire ‘em. Now, Cushman & Wakefield is not public, so I don’t have this huge constituency to make sure we are dealing with. We have one majority investor, EXOR S.p.A, which owns 75%, and the other 25% is owned internally. So I can give you a different answer, because I have one shareholder who determines whether this company is for sale or not, and that’s EXOR. EXOR has told me if someone asks you that question, the answer is no. And why? Because EXOR controls the stake.

[For the full interview, look out for the upcoming issue of Real Estate Forum. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook]