Shawn Mobley, the former president of brokerage services, is out at Grubb & Ellis.
Mobley and a number of senior level brokers have left the firm in recent days.
On Tuesday, the Illinois Real Estate Journal reported that Thomas Tunnicliff, Jay Stewart, and their brokerage team recently joined Cushman & Wakefield’s downtown office brokerage team. Tunnicliff and Stewart have been named executive vice presidents. Attempts to reach Tunnicliff have been unsuccessful.
A Grubb & Ellis spokesman also confirmed yesterday that Mobley has left the firm as well and that Justin Stanley, senior vice president and sales director, will serve as interim managing director. It is still unknown as to where Mobley will land.
Grubb and Ellis’s stock price has been falling steadily and traded at a 52-week low of $.40 on June 14. The price closed at $.42.
In March, Grubb & Ellis announced that it soon might be up for sale.
The company on March 21 announced that it has hired JMP Securities, a San Francisco-based investment bank, to explore a host of strategic alternatives for the company. These alternatives include the sale or merger of the company.
A Grubb spokesman responded to IREJ with the following statement yesterday: “Our Chicago offices are very active in the marketplace and, on the strength of our professionals, we continue to win business. We remain fully committed to providing entrepreneurial opportunities to our brokers and the highest level of service to our clients. “
While Grubb’s future appears to be in transition, Cushman & Wakefield has made a bevy of new hires in Chicago, potentially giving the firm significant headway into the market.
James Underhill, CEO of Americas for Cushman & Wakefield, said yesterday that the firm has made close to 20 hires in the past 30 days. Many of them are now revealed to be former Grubb & Ellis employees. In all, nine former Grubb & Ellis employees have been confirmed as new C&W brokers.
“We have been on an ambitious growth strategy,” said Underhill. “Chicago is a key market, not just in U.S., but globally, that we believe has significant potential (for C&W).”
Glen Rufrano, CEO of Cushman & Wakefield, spoke with Illinois Real Estate Journal last August and said that firm “needed a better plan and better penetration” in the Chicago market. This latest hiring spree may be a step toward that goal.
Recently, Cushman & Wakefield has hired Victoria Knudson from in its property management group, veteran tenant rep broker Mark Robbins from Transwestern, and Matthew Gworek to the firm’s capital markets division.
“We expect this growth to continue,” said Underhill.
David Petersen, COO of Oakbrook Terrace-based NAI Hiffman, has been in the market for 26 years and said that he can’t remember seeing such a mass movement of brokers without a merger or acquisition being involved.
“The thing we have to keep in mind is that at the end of the day Grubb and Ellis is still a good company with close to 1,000 brokers nationally,” said Petersen. “This is not the wheels coming off the machine, but with the number of brokers who left last week, that is pretty amazing for our market.”
He noted that the new hires will bolster Cushman & Wakefield’s local presence, but that there is always a gamble involved when luring established, top-tier talent.
“It suggests that they (C&W) are committed to the market,” he said. “However, they won’t see a return on that investment for some time. Talent does not come cheap when you purchase it. They are trying to buy future revenue, but a lot can happen in two or three years.”
-This story was originally posted on June 14. It has been updated with content today.