Partners: A Name Change and a New Growth Plan
By opting not to renew its affiliation with NAI Global, the firm is able to move into new markets it previously couldn’t.
The former Houston-based NAI Partners, now rebranded as Partners, has plans to expand throughout the US Sunbelt over the next several years. While one driver is these markets’ growth potential, another has been the company’s decision to not renew its affiliation with NAI Global. By leaving NAI Global, Partners will be able to open offices in any geography the company wishes, EVP Larry Koestler explains.
For instance, it has now opened an office in Dallas for the first time, even though it was the NAI member firm in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. “Being part of the NAI network had prevented us from also opening an office in DFW as there is a different firm completely independent of ours that licenses the NAI name in Dallas,” Koestler says.
Partners’ strategic growth plan calls for opening another 10-15 office locations by 2030 throughout the southeastern and southwestern United States.
According to managing partner Jon Silberman, Partners is now thinking about expansion into cities that are a three-hour flight or less from Houston and that are major and secondary high growth markets. “Specifically, we are discussing cities including Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, several cities in the Carolinas, Nashville, Denver, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City,” he tells GlobeSt.com.
One reason for this particular selection is proximity to the firm’s current base in Houston – hence the three-hour flight criteria – but more importantly to “grow into areas that are similar to Texas that are benefiting from the continued trend of population growth and movements out of the West Coast and Northeast markets,” Silberman says.
Other changes underway is its newly created Partners Finance Group that is in the final stages of approval from FINRA as a licensed securities broker dealer. “Partners Finance will focus on raising capital for our own investment vehicles and development projects as well as providing the same service to other private investment and development platforms for a fee,” Silberman says. “Think of this in similar terms to a Cadre or similar platforms, with the difference being we will be offering our own products in addition to those of other developer and investor platforms.”