Cushman & Wakefield Out to Raise $810 Million Via IPO

[Update July 24, 5:40 p.m. Eastern] The Wall Street Journal provides an interesting perspective on how this IPO will “test investor faith” in the current U.S. economic expansion.

 

Minnesota’s largest commercial real estate brokerage based on number of brokers is going public.

This morning, Cushman & Wakefield announced terms for its initial public offering valuing it at $3.6 billion. Its goal is to raise up to $810 million. The firm has 86 brokers in the Twin Cities area, according the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. Proceeds will be used primarily to reduce debt accumulated while making several acquisitions in recent years.

Cushman & Wakefield is based in Chicago and ranks as the nation’s third largest commercial real estate brokerage, with $191 billion in total global transaction volume per year, according to trade publication National Real Estate Investor. The next two largest are both already publicly held and are Jones Lang Lasalle ($219 billion in global volume) and CBRE Group, with $322 billion in global volume.

Last August, Cushman & Wakefield agreed to acquire all ownership in what had been a joint partnership with NorthMarq Real Estate Services in Minneapolis called Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq in Minnesota; and its sister operation, Cushman & Wakefield Commerce in Nevada, Utah and Washington.

The company said all operations would remain as they are and at that time, they constituted 750 people and managed 50 million feet of real estate across 10 offices. And Jeff Eaton, who had led NorthMarq Real Estate Services and been with the firm for 23 years, became president of Cushman & Wakefield’s North Central Region overseeing Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit. Earlier this year, however, Eaton left the firm.