For the second time this month, a greater Philadelphia brokerage has been purchased by a larger firm seeking to break into the region’s insular real estate market.
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Massachusetts-based Horvath & Tremblay announced its acquisition of Scope Commercial Real Estate on Tuesday. All of the firm’s roughly 20 employees will continue on with the buyer, and its office at 1650 Arch St. will become H&T’s new regional headquarters.
“Sometimes you can grow faster with a bigger operating partner,” said Scope founder Philip Sharrow, who is now a managing director at H&T.
“This is their first meaningful move into Philadelphia,” he added.
Sharrow founded Scope in 2019 after leaving Marcus & Millichap. The firm initially specialized in multifamily, which still makes up around 60% of its business, but has since expanded into retail, industrial and office and added a satellite office outside Harrisburg in Mechanicsburg.
Selling the firm was not always part of Sharrow’s business plan, but he said the opportunity to court capital from lenders outside Scope’s greater Philly network was a strong incentive.
He said Scope's existing relationships in Philly were attractive to H&T, since it can be a hard market for new players to break into.
Sharrow declined to reveal the sale price but said conversations with H&T have been underway since the start of the year.
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Sharrow said he was introduced to the buyer’s leadership by H&T Executive Vice President Mark Taylor, a retail broker who was previously the firm's lone operative in greater Philly.
“Phil and Scope have been highly respected in their market for some time,” H&T Executive Vice President Bob Horvath said in a statement.
“What they’ve done in a short period is exceptional. We look forward to building on that with the support of our NYC, NJ, and DC offices.”
The acquisition came after the brokerage bought New York City-based B6 earlier this month and is working to open up an office there near Bryant Park.
Just days earlier, Transwestern Real Estate Services purchased Philly-based SSH Real Estate.
The brokerage incorporated SSH’s headquarters at 123 S. Broad St. as its new regional office alongside the smaller firm’s 47 employees.
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