John Forrester To Replace Brett White As Cushman & Wakefield CEO
Cushman & Wakefield has named global President John Forrester as its next CEO, effective at the beginning of 2022. The real estate services giant's current CEO, Brett White, will remain as executive chairman, a position he has held since 2015.
In his current role, Forrester oversees all of the company’s service lines and regions (Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific), and is a member of Cushman & Wakefield's Global Executive Committee and Global Management Board. Forrester joined DTZ in 1988, serving as group chief executive of that firm before DTZ’s merger with Cushman & Wakefield in 2015.
The announcement came simultaneously with Chicago-based Cushman & Wakefield's second-quarter 2021 results, which showed a reversal of the losses the company has seen since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The company reported net income of $52.7M for Q2 2021, a leap from a net loss of $100.8M during the same quarter in 2020 as the pandemic affected all lines of its business.
White attributed much of the recovery to a rebound in Cushman & Wakefield's brokerage business during the company's earnings call on Thursday. For the second quarter, brokerage revenue increased 89% compared with Q2 2020 and is now back at 2019 levels, he said.
"We believe the faster-than-expected recovery we have experienced through the first half of the year in capital markets and nonoffice leasing is sustainable," White said. "Additionally, our property management, facility management and valuation segments continue to perform well, with fee revenue growing 7% and 16%, respectively, for the quarter."
White said that the company is seeing strong growth continue in its industrial, data centers, multifamily and life sciences assets. In the Americas specifically, Cushman & Wakefield experienced continued growth in industrial leasing in the second quarter, a sector he said continues to benefit from the shift to online shopping.
