NGKF wants cuter name
THE Newmark Grubb Knight Frank moniker may not be a mouthful in the near future.
Sources tell me that the company, owned by Howard Lutnick’s BGC Partners, which is also the parent of Cantor Fitzgerald, may soon go back to its roots and adopt the friendlier and simpler “Newmark” name.
There has been some push to use “Cantor,” as Cantor Commercial Real Estate is already a separate financing firm, but that has met with resistance from the NGKF legacy brokers.
“We’re working on the rollout of a brand that reflects the fact that we are all family,” said Barry Gosin, chief executive of NGKF, who declined to discuss any final name as the company still has paperwork and legal filings to complete. “We are going to roll out one big brand.”
The original family firm was known as Newmark & Co., but the Gural and Steinwurtzel families have now consolidated their familyowned properties under Newmark Holdings.
Meanwhile, the larger NGKF has grown through acquisitions and recruitment. It currently owns or has ventures with several firms that, for various legal and strategic reasons, have retained portions of their original names.
Newmark went on its global tear in 2005 when it formed a partnership with the Britishbased Knight Frank. Since being acquired by BGC in 2011, it has brought in Grubb & Ellis, Cincinnati Commercial Real Estate, Newmark Grubb Memphis, the Californiabased Newmark Cornish & Carey and the southern multifamily capital markets brokerage now known as ARA Newmark, plus others.
Last year, it also acquired Excess Space Retail Services.
A single “Newmark” brand would wipe out the behindthescenes squabbling and maneuvering — establishing their territories and soothing their founders’ egos — that takes place when bringing aboard other companies.
According to its Web site, NGKF now has 11,000 professionals in more than 340 offices on five continents.
“It is one company and one consolidated ownership and all report to the CEO, but we have respected some individual brands for some period of time,” said one insider on condition of anonymity.
A new moniker is expected by March 31.
A BGC spokeswoman did not return a call for comment. Stay tuned.
Fashion houses Bottega Veneta and Brioni have both chosen to move their city headquarters downtown to the Broad Financial Center at 33 Whitehall St.
Luxury Italian leatherwear company Bottega Veneta will move to the entire 16,889squarefoot 10th floor. It is currently located at 697 Fifth Ave. Its new boutique has opened at 849 Madison, while other stores are at 650 Fifth Ave. and Brookfield Place.
Brioni, the couture menswear designer, leased 8,500 square feet on a portion of the 14th floor. Its current offices are at 610 Fifth Ave. It was one of the first luxury brands with a store downtown, but closed it and now has one city store, at 57 E. 57 St.
Brian Higgins, Chris Kraus and Charles Gerace of JLL represented both of the Keringowned fashion firms.
CBRE’s Edward Goldman and Jonathan Cope represented the building owner, Stawski Partners, in the 10year deals that had asking rents of about $55 per square foot.
Several fashion companies are decamping offices from Midtown to Downtown, including Gucci.
The private wealth management company Silvercrest Asset Management has renewed its 41,600 square feet on the top four floors of the 40story building at 1330 Sixth Ave.
Silvercrest, with $19 billion under its watchful gaze, was founded from the ashes of Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette and, in 2002, stocked its then-sub-leased two floors of offices with the grand furniture and fixtures that make it old school and not open plan.
“It’s about privacy — it’s about security,” said its broker, Eric Reimer of Cushman & Wakefield. “The open layout doesn’t fit this model.”
Over the last year, , Reimer and Silvercrest considered alternatives at comparable Country Club Plaza District Buildings — which have a vacancy on tower floors of about 4 percent. But the current boutique footprint on floors of just over 10,000 square feet each would be difficult to replicate — and the buildout alone could run more than $350 a square foot.
Balance those “CapX” outofpocket projected costs with the good relationship developed with new building owner Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty, which is plowing more than $40 million into freshening the East 54th Street tower, and the decision to renew for 11 years and freshen up with paint and carpets was easy. William Elder and Lauren Ferrentino of RXR worked inhouse on the deal, which had asking rents of about $130 to $140 per square foot.