Tenant Rep Titans Merge
LA just saw the joining of two major tenant rep brokerage firms, with Travers Realty Corp (LA's oldest tenant firm) merging with the SoCal offices of Cresa. Yesterday, we asked Cresa managing principal Jerry Porter for some details, just before he caught a flight home from the CoreNet Global conference in DC. Jerry (snapped at LACRA's golf tournament this year) tells us the friendly competitors have talked on and off over the past couple years. Each firm has a diverse client base, he says, but they're also a bit different from one another. Whereas Cresa has a lot of entertainment and tech companies, Travers has more law firms and financial services. Travers will benefit from greater geographic coverage and the ability to develop more corporate portfolio work, he says. In addition, Cresa didn't have a Downtown LA office.
Jim Travers, whom we snapped with Travers SVP Linda Eng at Bisnow's Future of Century City Summit last year, founded his firm in 1978; he becomes managing principal and a member of the Cresa LA board of directors. Travers Realty will operate as Travers Cresa for the next two years, after which it'll become just Cresa. "It's unusual for Cresa to do that," Jerry says, meaning to differentiate a new member firm by its previous name. But as he notes, Jim Travers has built a 36-year legacy around his own name and his company's name. "It was important to all of us to maintain that legacy of his, albeit for a relatively short number of years. He certainly deserves the recognition."
The merger adds 32 brokerage professionals to Cresa’s operations in LA and Orange counties. It comes at a distinctive time, with the approval this year of SB 1171, which goes into effect in January. It requires commercial brokers to disclose in writing when they're acting as a dual agent, representing both the landlord and tenant or the buyer and seller (as is already the case with residential brokers). Jerry calls it a positive step toward greater transparency, and goes to the fact such brokers have potential conflicts of interest. "They're making revenue off of both sides of the transaction. It's not going to change a lot of behavior, but it will be an interesting disclosure."
