Marcus & Millichap Promotes Pontius

By Natalie Dolce

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Pontius

ENCINO, CA-Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services has promoted Alan Pontius to national director of commercial leased investment properties, according to president and chief executive officer John Kerin. In his new position, Pontius will oversee all commercial leased investment property divisions for the firm, including the national retail group.

Pontius will retain his position as national director of the national office and industrial properties group, which he has held for the past nine years. The national office and industrial properties group is one of Marcus & Millichap’s fastest-growing specialty groups.

Kerin points out that “Al is uniquely qualified to continue our expansion and rapid growth in the commercial leased investment arena, given his extensive background as a successful agent, manager and senior executive with the firm and his relationships with major investors nationally.”       

Pontius, who will manage close to 950 agents, tells GlobeSt.com that the company’s specialty groups are set up to provide coordination and service oversight to major clients, particularly multi-market owners. He points out that they also provide training and tools to the agents who specialize in each property type.

“I will oversee the day-to-day operations of the firm’s national office and industrial properties group and its national retail group, which are highly specialized but also have quite a bit of synergy when comes to large institutional and major private owners that cross property types in their holds,” he says. “The national retail group has nearly 330 investment professionals focused solely on the sale of single-tenant and multi-tenant retail assets.” Pontius tells GlobeSt.com that his responsibilities are much of what he has done for the office and industrial group for nearly 10 years in assisting those agents in developing their business and honing their client-services skills. “I will be responsible for facilitating the development of new relationships and maintaining the momentum we have with many of the largest retail owners in the country, such as REITs, DDR and Simon.”

Pontius points out that he is “excited to bring all of our resources as a highly specialized national firm to owners and investors, and help them navigate the market successfully. We have great momentum in leased investment sales and have become a leading source of market research, and I look forward to building on that track record,” he continues.

Pontius explains that the company has “several key advantages that have been well received by the investment community, which has fueled our penetration in leased investments. The key advantage is having access to a tremendous volume of private capital. This has been a driving factor in larger private owners, REITs and institutions coming to us for marketing their assets, especially in the past two years when the market became so challenging.” He adds that “We can get a deal done in a difficult market and many of our recent closings had been marketed by other brokers unsuccessfully.”

Another advantage clients have mentioned, he tells GlobeSt.com, is "the unique way we integrate our research at the macro level to help clients come up with the right strategy, and at the micro level when it comes to valuing a property and marketing it.” He explains that the company plans to “take these results and build on them by reaching out to more multi-market owners—private and institutional—and make sure they are aware of our problem-solving abilities and results that maximize their returns. At the same time, further training our specialists and hiring more experienced brokers are high priorities for us internally.”

In 1985, Pontius began his career with Marcus & Millichap as a sales associate, and in that capacity he consistently ranked among the firm’s top 25 investment specialists. In 1993, he was appointed regional manager of the Palo Alto office, where he led that office to consistently rank among the top offices companywide. Pontius was promoted to first vice president in 2000 and to senior vice president in 2002. Also in 2002, he was promoted to national director of the national office and industrial properties group. He was elected to managing director in 2007. 

Pontius’ industry trade affiliations include ICSC, Naiop and ULI, where he is regularly called upon to present on US real estate investment trends. He attended San Francisco State University. Pontius replaces long-time partner Bernard Haddigan, a former senior vice president and managing director, who retired from the firm.

Pontius will retain his previous position as well and explains that the company has “an elaborate, extended team structure in place that goes well beyond the person heading up each specialty group.”  He explains that each specialty group has its own support infrastructure—the research staff and products are specialized by property type. “We leverage our experienced agents at the regional level to coordinate multi-market assignments,” he says. “The senior directors and director designation throughout sales force go to the most experienced and active experts who are focused on local and regional markets throughout the country.”

His job, he says, is to “head up and organize a system and primarily assure that our major clients are getting what they need, rather than execute the actual transactions; it is truly a team effort.”

At the senior level, Pontius is partnering with managing directors Hessam Nadji and Bill Hughes, who are both industry and Marcus & Millichap veterans, and the resources of their various departments (research and financing) for both client-specific assignments, webcasts and events, as well as supporting the company's agents.