More than a year after holding informal meetings with banks to discuss an initial public offering, commercial real estate brokerage and services firm Cushman & Wakefield is reportedly interviewing advisers for its IPO launch.
The Chicago, Illinois-based brokerage, owned by private equity firm TPG Capital after its merger with competitor DTZ for $2B in September 2015, could go public as soon as this year, Bloomberg reports. This would mark the seventh real estate services public offering since May.
Newmark Group, a commercial real estate services firm that includes brokerage Newmark Knight Frank, went public in December for $14 a share. The results were somewhat meager compared to the $19 to $22 a share offering the company initially planned, analysts said. Investors' lukewarm reaction to the launch forced Newmark to drop its offering size from 30 million shares to 20 million.
Founded in 1917, Cushman & Wakefield has changed hands numerous times over the years and was owned by RCA Corp. and Rockefeller Group at different points in time. The firm has roughly 45,000 employees and is recognized as one of the “Big Five” largest commercial brokerage in the world, alongside JLL and CBRE.
