NEW YORK CITY-Seven months after it was first announced, locally based C-III Capital Partners’ acquisition of NAI Global has closed, GlobeSt.com has exclusively learned. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed; the Princeton, NJ-based NAI, reportedly the world’s largest network of independent commercial real estate firms, will continue to operate as a separate company under its current management.

“The completion of this transaction represents a significant step forward in our strategy to build a fully diversified commercial real estate services company,” C-III CEO Andrew Farkas says in a statement. “With the NAI Global acquisition, we are gaining the world's leading commercial real estate network and a tremendous foundation for future growth.” The NAI network encompasses 350 offices in the US and 55 other countries.

Farkas, who in the 1990s began building Insignia Financial Group into one of the world’s top three commercial real estate services firms by the time it merged with CBRE in 2003, adds that the NAI deal will provide “enhanced services” to the commercial and institutional real estate markets. His counterpart at NAI Global, president and CEO Jeffrey Finn, says in a statement that the combination provides an opportunity “to deliver an even broader range of services to our members and add greater value to our collective corporate and investment clients.”  

A unit of Island Capital Group, C-III got its start with the March 2010 acquisition of Centerline Capital Group’s institutional real estate debt fund management and commercial mortgage loan servicing businesses. Since that debut, C-III has launched mortgage origination, investment sales and title insurance businesses while growing its principal investment, loan origination, fund management and primary and special loan servicing lines.

Along with the NAI Global agreement, first announced this past June, C-III also enlarged its platform via its August 2011 acquisition of JER Partners’ special servicing and CDO management businesses. This past November, C-III also bought two affiliated multifamily property management businesses—US Residential Group in Carrollton, TX; and Irvine, CA-based Pacific West Management—which now operate on a combined basis as US Residential Group. Farkas says that 2012 will be marked by C-III “continuing to take advantage of other opportunities to grow and expand our platform.”