Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker has narrowly avoided losing its top auctions team to rival CBRE.
CBRE had been hoping to recruit CWHB’s auctioneer John Townsend and his numbers two and three, Martin Christopher and David Margolis. The team would have set up an auctions department from scratch as part of CBRE’s capital markets team, adding a whole new service line at a stroke.
But yesterday, at the eleventh hour, Townsend decided to stay at CWHB. And this morning CWHB said that Christopher and Margolis have also decided to stay with their current firm. A spokesman for CWHB said he “didn’t know” what terms had been offered to the trio to persuade them to stay.
It is the second time a rival without a commercial autions business has narrowly failed to poach one wholesale. Last year, FPDSavills almost persuaded Richard Auterac’s team at JLL to defect, but JLL fought back successfully to keep them.
If the CWHB team had left, the team would have consisted of just three junior staff, none of whom has rostrum experience.
References: EGi News 30/09/04
