IRVINE, CA-Colliers International has hired Richard Putnam, a veteran acquisitions and transactions executive in Southern California, as managing director of the company’s capital markets group on the West Coast. Putnam will be responsible for growing the company’s investment-sales business in the western region, working primarily on institutional-office and industrial sales assignments.

Putnam will be based in Irvine, CA, managing institutional client relationships for Colliers and originating and executing assignments in collaboration with existing company team members throughout the region.

“With an extensive and successful platform of leasing and sales professionals, Colliers offers a unique, ground-floor opportunity to leverage an existing brand into the investment-sales arena and provide a differentiating level of client service,” says Putnam. “I have known many, many local and regional Colliers brokers over the years, all of whom are tremendously talented. I can’t wait to work with them to provide more value to our common and future clients.”

Previously, Putnam was a managing director at RREEF/DB Real Estate, where he was responsible for acquisitions in Southern California and Denver, in addition to other client-oriented roles. After a stint with JP Morgan in New York, Putnam joined Trammell Crow Co. in 1988 here, where he established the capital markets group in 1996 and grew it into a $1-billion-per-year business with his former partner.

“In knowing Colliers for many years, I realized it had been sub-optimized and not totally consistent with its investment-sales capability despite tremendous spread and strength through its individual market brokers,” Putnam tells GlobeSt.com. “All of those guys have great relationships and great knowledge, but not in the institutional-investment world.”

Putnam adds that his investment-sales expertise will help bring Colliers to a higher-level strategic discussion about how to invest and a consistency of conversation amongst the institutional clients that Colliers has served in so many ways. “When I left RREEF in October of last year, I realized what I really enjoy doing as a challenge and a continued career in real estate was to grow a business by doing the right thing by clients and seeing that come back to you. Colliers will be a leading investment-sales force on the West Coast within a few years.”

Martin Pupil, regional managing director for Colliers in Greater Los Angeles, says Putnam has a long track record of winning and executing institutional transaction listings throughout the West Coast, and he is thrilled to add Putnam’s expertise to Colliers’ investment-services team. Pupil tells GlobeSt.com that starting a capital markets service group has been in Colliers’ plans for years, but the right person with the right talent hadn’t become available until now. “CBRE and East Dill Secured are the predominant institutional players on the West Coast. We have not been competing in that space and have been trying to figure out who would lead that charge for us. Rick brings us into the institutional investment arena, giving us the ability to control the product, which ties the whole platform together. It’s the top of the pyramid in the services world, and without it, it was becoming increasingly difficult to compete on the leasing and management side.”

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Richard Putnam To Build Colliers&#146; Capital Markets Group

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