Two Houston occupier-centric brokerage teams are joining forces after Chicago-based Cresa acquired Houston’s Fritsche Anderson Realty Partners, the companies announced.

The combination of Fritsche Anderson’s 11 brokers with Cresa’s Houston team, for a total of 23, will result in Houston’s largest privately held CRE firm focused exclusively on tenant representation, according to a news release.

The founders of Fritsche Anderson, Anthony Fritsche and David Anderson, will join Cresa’s Houston office as managing principals and co-market leaders. Fritsche and Anderson founded their firm in 2007 after working together for Trammell Crow Co. in Dallas and Houston.

“Owning and managing our own firm for the past seventeen years has been an honor and a privilege and we are incredibly appreciative to all of the clients, partners and colleagues that have made this journey possible,” Anderson said in the news release.

“That said, the industry continues to shift toward a more global focus and this strategic alignment enables us to continue providing our clients with the best-in-class service they have come to expect with the backing and comprehensive resources that Cresa has to offer.”

Fritsche Anderson has completed transactions totaling more than 17M SF since its founding, the release says. The firm represented Rimkus Consulting Group this year in a 50K SF lease at 12140 Wickchester Lane in Houston, also known as Woodbranch Plaza III.

“We felt there was alignment with Cresa very early in our discussions,” Fritsche said in the release. “To join a firm whose mission and culture are in parallel with our own was important to us, and the opportunity to leverage Cresa’s platform and resources to better serve our clients is very energizing.”

Cresa’s new market leaders have their sights set on growth, according to the release, which aligns with Cresa’s expansion.

Cresa has acquired four companies in the past 18 months. In May 2022, the firm acquired Dallas-based ESRP, which was founded by famed Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith. Smith left the firm in 2017, but ESRP continued to provide multimarket corporate and occupier advisory services to clients such as Mattress Firm, 7-Eleven, Neiman Marcus and NTT Data Services in more than 40 countries.

The Fritsche Anderson acquisition comes two years after Cresa relocated its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Chicago. The firm has set its sights on Texas, as it has also brought on several advisers in Austin and remains in recruiting mode there, the release says.

Cresa has more than 1,000 employees and over 80 offices, according to its website. The firm also partners with London-based Knight Frank, adding another 15,000 employees and 300 offices to its footprint.