Two of Avison Young’s top Atlanta office brokers have defected to Newmark.

Casey Keitchen and Art Waldrop have been named senior managing directors with New York-based Newmark.

A 20-year veteran investment sales broker in Atlanta, Keitchen has closed more than $2.8B in commercial real estate deals. Waldrop’s nearly 30-year career has focused on tenant representation. He has also had stints at CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield.

“Bringing both Art and Casey to Atlanta expands Newmark’s influence in the Southeast, yet another example of the firm’s momentum in attracting some of the industry’s best talent,” Newmark Executive Vice President Sean Moynihan said in a release.

The duo has left for a larger local office, jumping from Avison Young, the 15th-largest commercial real estate brokerage firm in Metro Atlanta, to Newmark, which is the sixth-largest, according to an Atlanta Business Chronicle ranking by gross dollar volume from sales and leasing.

Keitchen and Waldrop join Newmark as the firm nationally has been gaining market share in the capital markets by hiring away other firms' top talent. In February, New York City investment sales titans Doug Harmon and Adam Spies left Cushman & Wakefield to join Newmark, helmed by CEO Barry Gosin.

“If you’re a great broker and you want to be in a company that understands, appreciates and respects talent, this is the place for you,” Gosin told Commercial Observer in September.

Despite its increasing market share, Newmark is still cutting expenses along with many of its other peers in response to shrinking deal volume. Newmark slashed fixed costs by $50M earlier this year and expects to cut an additional $25M by the second quarter of 2024, executives said on its most recent earnings call.