Cushman & Wakefield Files To Go Public
After months of rumors that it was making this move, C&W is among the last of the big brokers to go public.
NEW YORK CITY–After many months of rumors that it would, Chicago-headquartered Cushman & Wakefield has filed the necessary paperwork to go public. It is among the last of the major brokers to go public: CBRE and Jones Lang LaSalle have been publicly-traded for years while Newmark went public in December 2017. Savills Studley is traded on the London Stock Exchange, and Colliers International is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.
C&W hopes to raise $1 billion from a listing, according to sources cited in The Wall Street Journal, which would value it at $5 billion. The IPO hasn’t been priced yet nor has the number of shares that will be offered determined.
Cushman’s revenue for 2017 was $6.92 billion, according to the filing, up from $6.2 billion the previous year.
C&W’s decision to list comes as the stock market continues its bull cycle run — albeit some of the gains from this year have reversed due to the concerns over US trade policy — and as the US economy enters into its second-longest period of expansion. It could be, though, that its timing will prove to be a bit off. Growing sentiment on Wall Street is that the current quarter, which ends in less than two weeks, is likely to be as good as it gets for the US economy and possibly the US stock market, according to sister publication ThinkAdvisor.
Private-equity firm TPG, which owns C&W along with PAG Asia Capital and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, acquired the company in 2014 for $3.5 billion. An IPO is the best exit strategy possible for it, real estate attorney Doug Ulene told GlobeSt.com in an earlier interview. “There is really no other exit strategy that you could think about,” Ulene, who has his own legal practice, Ulene PLLC, says.
The filing also comes as commercial real estate brokers are snapping up other companies to expand their market share or geographical reach. Last month the Newmark Group announced it is acquiring RKF Retail Holdings, a real estate firm that specializes in retail leasing, investment sales and consulting services.
Colliers International, as another example, has made some recent acquisitions including an agreement to take a 75% stake in Harrison Street Real Estate Capital for a total of $550 million. It also entered into an agreement to acquire Engel & Völkers Main -Taunus GmbH in Frankfurt, Germany. Marcus & Millichap, for its part, just closed on Pinnacle Financial Group, a Cleveland, Ohio-based commercial real estate mortgage brokerage and servicing firm.
Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and UBS Investment Bank will act as co-trustees and representatives of the underwriters. Barclays Capital Inc., BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, and William Blair & Company, L.L.C. will also act as co-syndicators for the offer.