CBRE Group, Inc. is a US-American commercial real estate company with headquarters in Los Angeles, California. As of its successful 2011 bid to acquire part of ING, CBRE was the world’s largest real estate investment manager. CBRE was ranked at 363 in the Fortune 500 in 2014 and was the highest-ranked company in the real estate sector.

History

Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Tucker, Lynch & Coldwell was established on August 27, 1906, and renamed Coldwell, Banker & Company in 1940. In 1989, in a leveraged buyout, CB Commercial was spun off as a privately held company, CB Commercial Real Estate Group Inc., from Coldwell Banker which, after financial difficulties, was later acquired by Realogy. Following CB Commercial’s 1998 acquisition of Richard Ellis International Limited, which traced its roots to London in 1773, the company changed its name to CB Richard Ellis.

In June 2004, CBRE began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2005, CBRE was first recognized as a Fortune 1000 company, and in 2006 it was added to the S&P 500. In late 2006, CBRE merged with Trammell Crow Company in a transaction valued at $2.2 billion.

In February 2011, CBRE won in auction the right to buy ING’s real estate investment management business in Europe and Asia (Asia acquisition completed in October 2011) as well as ING’s United States–based Clarion Real Estate Securities division, making CBRE the “world’s biggest real estate investment manager”. The agreement also included ING’s listed securities business.

The company changed its name to CBRE Group, Inc. on October 3, 2011. This change was made to bring the formal name of the company into alignment with the well recognized “CBRE” brand.

Business model

In real estate, as of 2011, CBRE’s approach has been to invest in “properties that need upgrading before they are sold”. The company’s acquisition of ING Asian real estate assets was consistent with this in that, though ING’s approach to real estate has in general been to “invest in properties with a steady cash flow as well as listed real estate securities”, the Asian property business included a significant stake in “properties that need upgrading”.

Operations

Real estate investment operations reside in CBRE Investors, a wholly owned subsidiary of CBRE Group. As of 2011, the CBRE Investors unit had US$37.6 billion of assets under management.