Mark Woodworth: “CBRE is a terrific well-known brand, but they also realized that we were dealing with a 100-year well-known legacy.”
LOS ANGELES—PKF-HR is adopting the CBRE Hotels name officially in February of this year. The two companies merged more than a year ago, and have been slowly integrating their company cultures and branding. At ALIS this year, the PKF-HR announced that it would take the parent company's name, but that its storied culture—the company is more than 100 years old—would carry over to the new firm.
The merger creates a true one-stop-shop for hotel clients to receive both consulting and solutions to their problems, according to Mark Woodworth, senior managing director at PKF-HR. The company can now offer clients steadfast advice and a service to carry out the solution, which they weren't able to do before. “This was a very thoughtful process,” Woodworth tells GlobeSt.com. “There was a view that this should have happened earlier. CBRE is a terrific well-known brand, but they also realized that we were dealing with a 100-year well-known legacy. Tremendous energy has gone into every facet of the brand conversion.” Scott Biethan, senior managing director of CBRE Hotels echoes the sentiment, tells GlobeSt.com, “We have to make sure that whatever we do, we are preserving the culture of the people that we bring in, because it is very valuable. It took us a long to discern the best way to incorporate both brands.”
In the newly rebranded companies, which will operate under CBRE Hotels, CBRE is most excited to incorporate PKF's established research platform into the CBRE Hotels platform. “PKF is the gold standard in hotels, and bringing the two groups together has been a really great event for us all,” says Biethan. “We came together as a company a year-and-a-half ago and have taken that time to discern the right way to have our team present in the marketplace. It is really a rebrand and refresh. CBRE Hotels globally is really strong, and has really strong consulting, debt and brokerage. With the interdiction of PKF and their skillset with their professionals, we took our consulting and valuation to a whole new level. Having PKF has made it that much easier to provide services.”
The merger also allows PKF to expand its international reach. “A big part of what we are doing on the research side is reaching out to our colleagues around the globe and better linking our knowledge and systems and so forth with our clients,” says Woodworth. “It isn't going to happen tomorrow, but eventually we hope to have the views and insights that we have developed over a long period of time in the US and in Canada available to other key regions around the world. For 20 or 30 years now, it has become very clear that this is a global industry. The fact that we are able to link our US resources with our global resources enhances our position in terms of availability to provide our clients with what they need.”
The rebrand will become official on in February 2017, when PKF-HR will become CBRE Hotels.
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Kelsi Maree Borland
