Cushman & Wakefield’s D.C. Capital Markets team, a leading investment sales group that closes billions of dollars in deals annually, has lured a broker from a competing firm.

Michael Zelin, who has spent his last 12 years with Eastdil Secured, is joining Cushman as a managing director, Cushman & Wakefield Managing Principal Peter Carroccio announced in an internal email shared with Bisnow.

As a senior vice president at Eastdil, Zelin specialized in debt and structured finance. He previously spent five years with JLL starting in 2002, after graduating from the University of Wisconsin.

Cushman’s Capital Markets team, led by Bill Collins, Paul Collins, Eric Berkman and Drew Flood, brokered 55 deals totaling $3.5B in the first nine months of 2018, and has closed several large transactions since then, including the $385M sale of 1501 K St. NW in December. Cushman & Wakefield was named the D.C. region’s sales/financing firm of the year at the CREBA awards earlier this month.

Zelin will help the team’s financing efforts, working with clients across several asset classes to secure loans. He has recently worked on financing deals for The Wharf, Midtown Center and the Washington Hilton.