LOS ANGELES—Kevin Shannon has joinedNewmark Grubb Knight Frank as West Coast presidentof the firm's capital markets group. Shannon is one of the premierinvestment sales brokers on the West Coast, and was formerly thevice chairman in the capital markets group atCBRE. He joins NGKF with his team of 14 othercapital markets executives.

"I moved to NGKF because they made it clear that they willcontinue to aggressively build a best-in-class capital marketsplatform nationally. Rob Griffin was a huge addition on the EastCoast but their progress in Southern California in the last twomonths has been remarkable," Shannon tells GlobeSt.com. "They hiredCurtis Palmer who was one of CBRE's top twomultifamily sales producers in Los Angeles. They also hiredPete Bethea, a top retail investment producer,formerly with Cushman & Wakefield, and they got 15 of the 16team members from my Orange County and Los Angeles investment salesteams. These key hires drive strong capital markets growth acrossthe country, not just in Southern California. NGKF had 202% yearover year growth in property sales in Real Estate Alert's mid-year2015 rankings, which was by far the top growth rate among the topsix brokerages. NGKF has quickly become the number-two multifamilysales brokerage firm nationally. The ability to participate andlead this type of growth, and the fact that NGKF is much morenimble and entrepreneurial is really exciting."

Last year, Shannon led $6 billion in acquisitions at CBRE, andin his career, he has sold and marketed more than $46 million intransactions. Based in the firm's El Segundo office Shannon willcontinue to he will continue to manage deals throughout the regionand to focus on institutional clients across asset classes. "I willbe leading the Western United States NGKF capital markets group. Myprimary focus will still be on executing sales assignments for myclients along the west coast from Seattle to San Diego and as fareast as Denver," says Shannon. "The NGKF platform will offer myclients superior direct foreign capital access. This is criticalafter the year-end FIRPTA legislative changes and more complex debtequity finance solutions, among other advantages. Ourstrategy will include building a close collaborative group thatutilizes our collective talents to best serve our client'sinterests. There will be no silos based on product type orgeographic region."