Turmoil at CBRE in wake of veteran Rick Butler's departure?
Several senior directors of real estate services firm CBRE have quit the estate agency, according to reports featured in the Australian Financial Review.
The paper's Street Talk column advised the directors are joining recently departed CBRE veteran Richard Butler to start a new business.
It advised four members of the capital markets team, including national Director Josh Cullen, senior director Steve Kearney, associate director Mark Hansen and analyst and senior associate director Claire Zouroudis had departed CBRE.
"They left the building at lunchtime on Monday and did not return," the AFR advised.
Though naturally none of the players returned any calls to the paper.
Josh Cullen who joined CBRE in 2001 and was the national head of CBRE’s Capital markets team remains on the staff website.
He was last in the news when in May Charter Hall Group and Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing finalised a deal to buy Sydney landmark One Shelley Street from Brookfield Property Partners for $525 million, which ranked among the city’s largest. It is Macquarie Group's building on King Street Wharf.
CBRE's senior managing director, international investments, Rick Butler, who has reportedly left the firm after 26 years, is also still listed on the staff website.
As CBRE's lead conduit to offshore capital, Butler was involved in more than $10 billion worth of sales including Central Plaza in Brisbane, Aurora Place in Sydney and the Southern Cross Precinct in Melbourne.
Richard first joined CBRE in 1989 as Director, City Sales, then in 1995 was appointed Director, Asian Marketing (Eastern Seaboard Offices).
At the time of his earlier departure, CBRE advised the then AFR editor, Robert Harley that it "looked forward to having an ongoing relationship with Rick, who will continue to provide expert consultancy services to CBRE in the future.”
Today it issued a statement saying "CBRE has the strongest Capital Markets platform, both globally and in the Pacific, and we remain committed to investing in our team to ensure that our clients can reap the benefits of our international reach, broad service offering and local networks and capabilities."