New York Company Acquiring Brokerage Firm Grubb & Ellis
Wednesday, February 22, 2012BGC Partners Inc. is acquiring Grubb & Ellis Co., a commercial brokerage firm that has San Diego County operations at University Towne Center.
Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis, which has been struggling financially recently, announced Feb. 20 that it has signed an agreement to sell “substantially all its assets” to BGC of New York. Financial terms were not disclosed in a statement.
Grubb & Ellis plans to implement the transaction as an asset sale under Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, and has commenced Chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
“We believe the transaction will be seamless for our clients and we expect no disruption to the company’s operations,” Grubb & Ellis President and CEO Thomas P. D’Arcy said in the statement.
D’Arcy said the firm’s customers will benefit from the services of BGC, which last year acquired Newmark Knight Frank, one of the nation’s largest commercial real estate service firms.
Jim Munson, executive vice president and managing director in the San Diego office of Grubb & Ellis, said by phone that he did not anticipate any immediate changes in operations, but referred questions to the company’s national media representatives in New York.
The San Diego office handled $136 million in transaction volume in 2010, according to data supplied by local commercial real estate brokerages for the 2012 San Diego Business Journal Book of Lists.
Locally, the company employs 28, and has 23 licensed agents.
Grubb & Ellis established its current San Diego office in March 2010, when it acquired locally based Commercial Realty Advisers. That move came shortly after locally based BRE Commercial switched its brokerage affiliation from Grubb & Ellis to rival commercial real estate firm Cassidy Turley.
— Lou Hirsh
