VANCOUVER, CANADA-Jones Lang LaSalle continued its decade-long push into Canada with the opening of a new office here. The company hired a three-person team from Colliers, including Ray Ahrens, Norm Taylor and Gavin Reynolds, to run the office.

Jim Becker, head of JLL Canada, tells GlobeSt.com that the Canada push is to try to catch up with the competition. “We consider our competitive set here to be firms such as CB Richard Ellis, Colliers, Cushman and Wakefield and Avison Young, and they are doing about $600 million to $700 million in fees each year – but our market share of that pie is negligible. We’re the second largest real estate services firm in the world, we need to get our portion here commensurate with our position in the world,” he says.

The team, with Ahrens as EVP and the other two as SVPs, is the best in the area, Becker says. “They are one of the few groups that act as a true team,” he says. “We felt they were the best fit for our platform.” A Colliers official did not return calls or email for comment.

The company’s Canadian headquarters is Toronto, and has opened offices in Mississauga and Montreal, and Ottawa in 2010. “We’re growing fast in Canada, and Vancouver is an extremely critical market,” Becker says.