Recruitment Subspecialty Emerges From Core

NEWPORT BEACH, CA-Placing individual brokerage professionals and teams with new organizations is a fine art, one that depends on skills honed from years in the commercial real estate marketplace. Recently formed CA Capital Representatives, sister company of Christenson Advisory Services, is borne of that skill.

The firm is focused on effectively securing placement opportunities for professionals, as well as assisting companies in building their business and professional bases. CACR evaluates the best placement solution that suits its clients' needs in a company that supports their goals, or helps them create an independent firm. It also completes searches on behalf of firms looking for the right professional or team for their company.

“We kind of fell into it by accident,” managing principal Jack Van Berkel tells GlobeSt.com. “My partner [Jim Jones] and I have been in the commercial real estate business for some period of time. As executives at CBRE and Grubb, we hired hundreds of teams and brokers and helped to integrate them into an organization. We already had that background from the corporate side, but now we're doing it from the consulting side.”

When the partners left Grubb, they formed a firm where they raised money and created a commercial real estate fund and a retail broker dealer to go along with its commercial broker dealer. “A team came to use and said, 'We want to go out on our own. Can you help us raise capital and start a company?' ” says Van Berkel. “We knew all the legal things that brokers don't really work with on a daily basis.”

When professionals come to CACR, they either want to go out on their own and raise capital to start an independent firm. “We have all sorts of contacts within the commercial real estate world and know what people are looking for,” says Van Berkel. “We found out about their specific needs and desires in the market.”

He adds that he's not aware of any other firm that helps professionals raise capital to go out on their own. “There are boutique organizations that come to us and say, 'We'd like to be integrated into a larger firm.' ”

More recently, CACR has been focusing on practice areas and helping teams that cover larger national geographic area. “A lot of hiring gets done at the local level, but a lot of these teams are nationally based.”