Knight Frank has struck a new alliance with Berkadia, a US-based agency backed by Berkshire Hathaway and investment bank Jefferies.
The alliance is the second agreed by Knight Frank in the US since a tie-up with Newmark ended. In 2019, the firm announced a partnership with occupier-centric adviser Cresa. Knight Frank also has a longer-standing agreement with residential-focused agency Douglas Elliman.
The new alliance will be overseen by a management board that will meet quarterly and include senior executives from both organisations, including Neil Brookes, Knight Frank’s global head of capital markets, and Keith Misner, Berkadia’s co-head of investment sales.
Berkadia was established as a joint venture in 2009, operating across deals, mortgage banking and loan servicing. The company has originated $75bn (£60.6bn) in commercial loans and advised on $48bn in asset sales over the past two years.
William Beardmore-Gray, Knight Frank’s senior partner and group chair, told EG: “[Berkadia was] keen to have access to the capital flows and relationships that we have throughout Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia and, vice versa, we believe strongly that our clients around the world need access to North American capital.
“Since we split with Newmark, we have taken an approach that we are never going to have one partner in the US as a one-size-fits-all solution, but really focus through our service-line approach on the best-in-class partners which will meet the requirements of our clients and our strategy around the world.”
He added: “In Berkadia, we found a private company which shares our values, which aligns with our culture and is absolutely best in class in the debt and capital advisory space as well as capital markets.”
Beardmore-Gray added that cultural fit had been crucial in identifying the three parties with which Knight Frank now has alliances in the US.
“We have a culture as a partnership which we guard jealously,” he said. “We are an independent business. We believe that that independence and ability to drive our own strategy, unencumbered by shareholders or debt or foreign ownership, defines a lot of the way we behave around the world. And we think that that really resonates with our clients.
“Therefore, we have been really focused on making sure that anybody that we partner with aligns with our culture – otherwise it is not going to work and it is certainly not going to last.”
For more from Knight Frank’s William Beardmore-Gray, see this week’s EG
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