Insignia/ESG Doing a Dallas Shuffle

DALLAS-Stay tuned. Insignia/ESG Inc. in Dallas has made one significant change and another is right around the corner.

The first shuffle comes with the hiring of Randy Cooper as senior managing director. The second, if the word on the street is accurate, is that Insignia is eyeing an acquisition.

Cooper, an 18-year veteran, is one of the Dallas-Ft. Worth’s leading brokers in the corporate services arena. And, he’s jumped from senior vice president of Chicago-based Equis Corp.’s Dallas office, which he opened in 1997, to steer an Insignia drive in the DFW. “My move is one step in a two-step process,” Cooper confides to GlobeSt.com, “and the next step will be announced next week.” But until then, he’s hushed about the big news.

Cooper will be teaming with Tom Wenkstern, the Dallas-based senior managing director for Insignia’s national corporate services. That’s for corporate accounts. His particular focus will be to strengthen Insignia’s tenant representation, which now is minimal.

Cooper says it’s a good fit because he wanted to get back into tenant rep and Insignia wanted more business. “I saw a trend with the companies that I was working with. They were asking for a larger bundle of services,” he explained. Insignia’s multi-faceted hierarchy will provide just what he was seeking whereas Equis is strictly corporate services.

Before the Dallas shuffle is done, Cooper says up to 25 brokers will be added to the 15 to 20 already in place. The team, naturally, will come over time, but it will come. “My idea now is to rebuild and grow new business,” he says.

Cooper and New York City-based Insignia’s execs had talked about the possibility of him coming on board, but he says, “this opportunity came up real quick.” So quick that Equis is still looking to fill his shoes. In addition to steering the Dallas ship, he oversaw Equis offices in San Antonio, Austin and Houston.

As one of Dallas’ heavy real estate hitters, Cooper has completed more than eight million sf of assignments since 1983 and more than $500 million in transaction volume since 1993. His client roster includes Ericsson, State Farm Insurance, Coca-Cola, International Paper, New York Life, SBC Communication, Omnicom, Abbott Laboratories and Daimler Chrysler.