CBRE Rolls Out Welcome Mat for Sales Team

John D. Lyons, president and CEO of Granite Partners, and Gerard V. Mason, executive managing director, did not return telephone calls for comment about the exit of their senior managing director and managing partner, Richard H. Rudd, who left with his team at his side. Mason is overseeing Houston, an office that shares Granite's headquarters designation with Lyons' home base in New York City.

Rudd, who joined Granite in 1997, was named executive vice president for CBRE while his seven-year teammates, Mary L. Carolan and Kent R. Peters rose to first vice presidents with the switch. Both were vice presidents at Granite. The team will be part of a specialized investment properties group targeting significant income-producing dispositions. Last year, the team's volume exceeded $1 billion. Rudd, with a $10-billion history spanning two decades, has a transactions scrapbook that includes the $280 million sale of the 3.1-million-sf Allen Complex in downtown Houston, the $500-million disposition of a retail portfolio for First Union and the sale of 1400 Smith St., a 1.3-million-sf office tower once owned by JPMorgan Chase and Enron.

Rudd, mum about negotiations for the exit, will only say that "we've hit the ground running. It's business as usual for us." The team is wrapping up its first week with CBRE. Rudd tells GlobeSt.com that there are "five or six" deals to finish for Granite before the break is clean. He did add the decision to switch companies was driven by "the resources and the reach that CBRE has on a national and global basis." The move makes Rudd a member of CBRE's institutional investment sales group.

"The addition of this diverse team of investment property experts accelerates our position in the investment sales arena" Will Penland, CBRE's senior managing director in Houston, says in a press release.

The team's influence in Houston runs deep. The team's "arrival" at CBRE, says Gregory S. Vorwaller, the brokerage firm's investment properties' president, "catapults us to the number one position as investment sales experts in the Greater Houston marketplace."