Farkas Network Establishes Much Needed New York Presence
NAI Global, a commercial real-estate services network linked to Andrew Farkas, has agreed to a deal with EVO Real Estate Group based in New York. This network has 165 firms connected across 204 cities worldwide. Through this deal, EVO will become the New York office of the network.
C-III Capital Partners, under the direction of CEO Andrew Farkas, purchased NAI in 2012. NAI provides brokerage among other services to external clients as well as all of Farkas’ ever expanding collection of real-estate businesses. There has been one noticeable hole in the network in New York, which many consider to be the most important real-estate market in the world.
EVO will be instrumental in bridging this gap as they are native to the city and currently manage around 3.5 million square feet of commercial property. The president of NAI Global, Jay Olshonsky, remarked that they were thrilled to now have a strong presence in New York.
Mr. Farkas is well known for his acquisition of Edward S. Gordon Co. in 1996, which he sold in 2003 to CB Richard Ellis for $415 million. This is just one of many real-estate and brokerage empires that Farkas has built over the years.
Current trends in the brokerage industry have shown larger firms moving away from the network structure preferred by NAI, but instead are moving towards ownership of all of their individual member offices. When C-III initially acquired the NAI network, they owned the New York member office, but in a strategic move they decided to replace the newly acquired office within the network, along with a few other offices owned by NAI, with wholly owned companies independent of the network. The network is estimated to reach a combined revenue total of $1 billion in 2014.
Winoker Realty Co. was a well-known New York based real-estate firm who made headlines in 2012 when their president, David Winoker, died tragically in a sky-diving accident. In 2013 the firm was sold to two former employees, father and daughter duo Ira Fishman and Dana Moskowitz, by the deceased’s widow. The firm quickly rebranded as EVO Real Estate Group, with the name being chosen to reflect the desired evolution the firm would undertake.
This new deal between EVO and NAI Global will enable EVO to expand and develop due to the shared information between member firms, according to Mr. Fishman. An example of this might be if EVO had a client in New York, who was also looking to lease out another building in a different state, EVO could link up with the network member office in that state and the fees and commissions would be divided up between the two member firms. Mr. Fishman is said to be excited about the concept as he has never been part of a network like this before.
Mr. Farkas’ vast collection of businesses uses the NAI Global network for brokerage services among others. The president of NAI Global insists this is because the network is continually proving that they offer the best service, not because of the ties with Mr. Farkas. The reason they feel they stand out is because each of the individual firms in the network are experts in their respective regions. This means that firms in the network can refer clients to other member firms with the confidence that they will provide the same standard of care and expertise as each other. According to Mr. Olshonsky, firms within a network that are independently owned have more of an incentive to make sure that their clients, local or referred, are getting the best service.
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