DTZ To Buy Cushman & Wakefield For $2 Billion

After weeks of speculation, brokerages DTZ and Cushman & Wakefield made it official on Monday, announcing a $2 billion merger that will create a commercial real estate behemoth with 43,000 employees and more than $5 billion in revenue.
Brett White, former CEO of CBRE, will run the combined firm.
The deal is expected to close by the fourth quarter and the combined company will maintain the Cushman & Wakefield branding.

“The companies have remarkably complementary skills and reach in different geographies – whether in New York, London or Shanghai, this will be a formidable combination,” White said in a news release.

DTZ‘s acquisition of the storied Cushman & Wakefield is the latest brokerage mega-merger in the last two years: Newmark Grubb Knight Frank‘s purchase of Cornish & Carey in 2014 and DTZ‘s private equity-funded pickup of Cassidy Turley earlier this year.
The deal is good news for real estate sign makers, who only recently completed the switch-over from hundreds of Cassidy Turley signs to DTZ-branded ones. Now all those will have to be changed to Cushman. (CRE-sources is DEFINITELY going to be exploring the addition of sign-making in its menu of services!)
Cushman’s owner, the Italian investment company Exor, has been exploring a sale of Cushman for some months. The New York City-based brokerage was founded in 1917. Its revenue in 2014 was $2.1 billion. It had 250 offices in 60 countries and more than 16,000 employees.
Upon completion of the merger, Carlo Barel di Sant’Albano, current International CEO of Cushman & Wakefield and EMEA CEO, will take “a senior global leadership role,” the news release stated. John Santora, current CEO of North America at Cushman & Wakefield, will become chief operating officer and chief integration officer.
Tod Lickerman, current global CEO of DTZ, will assume the role of president of the global company.
 
Source:  SFBJ

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