NEW YORK CITY—Before American Realty Capital Properties began making the news for very different reasons, it was a prodigious buyer during 2014—in fact, the year's biggest by both dollar volume and number of properties, according to Real Capital Analytics. The lion's share of both tallies came from its $11.2-billion merger with Cole Real Estate Investments, which closed last February.

The merger brought ARCP's portfolio to nearly 3,700 properties leased to over 1,100 tenants occupying over 100 million square feet in 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Later in the year, the REIT reeled in a $1.5-billion sale-leaseback of more than 500 Red Lobster locations.

Other big buyers during the year included JP Morgan, Northstar Realty Finance, Essex Property Trust, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund Norges Bank Investment Management, TIAA-CREF, Starwood Capital Group, MetLife, Lone Star Funds—and a company whose selling volume was in the same ballpark as its buying. That would be the Blackstone Group, which already promises to figure high in next year's RCA roster on the strength of the sale of its IndCor industrial platform to Singapore's SWF, GIC Pte. Blackstone also ranked second on RCA's list of top buyers by number of properties during '14.

When it comes to arranging investment sales, the leading brokerage for '14 was CBRE, which topped RCA's list for both dollar volume and number of properties. Rounding out the top five for investment volume were Eastdil Secured, HFF, JLL and Cushman & Wakefield. In terms of the number of properties sold, Marcus & Millichap ran CBRE a close second, followed by Eastdil, Colliers International and JLL in the top five.

CBRE and Eastdil divided the honors for investment volume by property type. Eastdil ranked highest for office, retail and hotel volume, while CBRE led the way for multifamily, industrial and development site sales.

Complete coverage of the year's top investment sales, and much more, will appear in Real Estate  Forum's Deals of the Year 2014. For more information on the issue, or to participate, contact Gregg Christensen.

Plus, if you have a project that has made its debut in the past decade, check out our Pioneering Projects: Developments That Make a Difference, to appear in Forum's April 2015 issue.