The Nests of CB Richard Ellis
There once was a bird named Ellis,
Who built his nest in a trellis….
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
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CB Richard Ellis in the news:
June 17, 2004
ALBANO SWORN IN AS UH REGENT
From http://maui.unclewebster.com
More than 150 Oahu residents were officially sworn in to serve on the state’s various boards and commissions Thursday….
Among those sworn in to office yesterday was Andres Albano Junior – the newest member of the University of Hawaii Board of Regents.
Albano joins the regents at a time when the panel is embroiled in the fallout from their controversial move to fire university’s president Evan Dobelle.
Albano who is the vice president of commercial real estate firm C-B Richard Ellis was approved to a four-year term.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
CB Richard Ellis has become the largest commercial real estate services company in the world with its recent acquisition of the international real estate firm Insignia/ESG, which represents clients in Hawaii’s marketplace.
CBRE now employs more than 14,000 people throughout its more than 250 offices in 48 countries and has annual revenues of more than $1.7 billion.
‘The new CB Richard Ellis is not merely about size of scale or critical mass,’ said Joseph Haas, managing director of CBRE Hawaii Inc. ‘Rather, it is about having additional resources and expertise available to better serve our clients here in Hawaii and around the world.’
Last year CBRE and Insignia produced and/or directed:
• Sales and lease transactions with a total value in excess of $80 billion;
• $9 billion in commercial financing;
• More than 700 million square feet of property and corporate facilities under management;
• $14 billion in investment assets under management; and
• Nearly 41,000 appraisal/valuation and advisory assignments on properties with a total asset value of $414 billion.
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Richard C. Blum is an investment banker and the husband of United States Senator from California Dianne Feinstein. He is a managing partner Blum Capital Partners, LP, an investment firm, and has a net worth of over $50 million.
In 2002, Blum was appointed by California Governor Gray Davis to a 12-year term as a Regent of the University of California.
Blum serves on the boards of the following companies:
CB Richard Ellis (Chairman)
Newbridge Capital, LLC (co-Chairman)
Korea First Bank
Northwest Airlines
Playtex Products
Glenborough Realty Trust
Kinetic Concepts (jointly owned with Fremont Partners)
Critics have frequently accused Blum and Sen. Feinstein of political corruption and conflicts of interest arising from his business interests and his contributions to his wife’s Senate campaigns.
In 1992, Feinstein was fined $190,000 for failing to disclose that Blum had guaranteed nearly $3 million in loans to fund her 1990 bid for California governor.
In 1997, a Los Angeles Times article revealed that while Feinstein was campaigning in the Senate for a lifting of trade sanctions against the People’s Republic of China, Blum was managing millions of dollars of investments in Chinese businesses through his firm Newbridge Capital.
Shortly after the scandal erupted, Blum announced that he would donate all of his profits from his China investments to charity.
Blum has a strong interest in Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. In 1981 he attempted to climb Mount Everest from the Tibetan side with Sir Edmund Hillary. He is the founder of the American Himalayan Foundation, which has given millions of dollars to build hospitals and schools in Tibet and Nepal.
For more on China deals, GO TO >>> Crouching Dragon ~ Hidden Rats
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Not a Crook: Fred Malek
This former Nixon aide likes to make lists – of political benefactors and, most notoriously, of Jews
By L. J. Davis, Mother Jones
Fred Malek received his 15 minutes of fame in the 1970s as deputy director of CREEP (Committee to Re-elect the President), the Nixon White House operation behind Watergate. Unlike many of his former associates, Malek walked out of Washington.
After lying low for a time, he made his political comeback as a leader in the Republican Party in the late 1980s, only to resign as deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1988 when an ugly incident from his past came to light: At Nixon’s behest, he had drawn up a list of Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where Nixon thought a “Jewish cabal” was out to get him.
Nonetheless, Malek rebounded yet again in 1992 as campaign manager for the Bush/Quayle ticket.
Now a GOP fundraiser, Malek once wrote a most explicit description of political influence. In a briefing paper on the federal budget to Nixon in 1972, Malek asserted: “All major grants and construction decisions for the next fiscal year should be reviewed prior to the finalization of the budgets to ensure to the extent possible they impacted on politically beneficial areas.”
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Frederic V. Malek
From American Friends of the Czech Republic
Fred Malek was raised in a middle class ethnic area near Chicago. He won an appointment to West Point and post graduation served as an airborne ranger army officer, attached to a Special Forces (green beret) group in Vietnam in the early 60s.
Following his Army tour, Mr. Malek has had success in four careers encompassing corporate management, government, politics, and finance. As a corporate executive, Fred served Marriott Corporation for 14 years rising to President of Marriott Hotels and Resorts where he was responsible for mor than $3 billion in sales, 70,000 workers, and a quadrupling of profits. He later served as President and Co-CEO and then Vice Chairman of Northwest Airlines where he led major improvements in performance.
Mr. Malek has played a key role in government over the past 30 years. He served as Deputy Under Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare under Elliot Richardson, as Special Assistant to the President, and as Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. In his White House role, he was responsible for recruiting Cabinet level officials, pioneered professional executive search in government, and led a government wide effort to improve government management….
During the 1990s, Mr. Malek started his fourth career as financier, and founded Thayer Capital Partners where he is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. During this period, he co-led the buyouts of Northwest Airlines, CB Richard Ellis (formerly Coldwell Banker), and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Companies with Marriott as the majority partner and investor.
Mr. Malek received his Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School, and he and his wife of 39 years have two children.
He currently serves on the boards of several university and other non-profit institutions.
For more, GO TO > > > A Connecticut Yankee in King Kamehameha’s Court
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Fredric V. Malek
Chairman, Thayer Capital Partners; Former partner in the Texas Rangers with President George W. Bush
From: The Washington Baseball Club
Fred Malek is Chairman of Thayer Capital Partners, a Washington D.C. based merchant bank. Mr. Malek formed Thayer Capital Partners in 1993 to acquire operating companies of divisions of larger companies….
Thayer Capital and Mr. Malek led the 1995 acquisition of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, with Marriott International as a major equity partner. He was one of the three leaders in the acquisition of Northwest Airlines and is a director and major investor in Northwest Airlines, where he served as President and vice Chairman from late 1989 through 1991.
Earlier, Mr. Malek led with management the acquisition of CB Richard Ellis (formerly Coldwell Banker), the largest real estate services company in the United States, where he served as Co-Chairman until 1996.
Mr. Malek also is Chairman and CEO of Thayer Hotel Investors, a large equity partnership that purchases, owns, and operates hotels valued at $2 billion in the United States. He serves on the boards of several other large corporations including Automatic Data Processing, Inc., and FPL Group (Florida Power and Light)….
For more, GO TO > > > The Washington Baseball Club
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October 25, 2003
Estate selects land managers
By Andrew Gomes, Honolulu Advertiser
The nonprofit trust recently informed the companies — CB Richard Ellis Hawaii Inc., Colliers Monroe Friedlander, MMI Realty Services Inc. and Sofos Realty Corp. — of its intent to assign them management contracts, which may still need approval from top officials at Kamehameha Schools.
According to some of the firms involved, the trust is assigning management and leasing for about 20 properties, including shopping centers, small office buildings, the estate’s headquarters and industrial properties on O’ahu and the Big Island.
Management of the estate’s prime retail centers, Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in Waikiki and Windward Mall in Kane’ohe, is not included, but is expected to be outsourced later.
An estate spokesman yesterday said he could not confirm the deal because final contracts had not been negotiated, but the vendors are expected to take over management Dec. 1.
The $5 billion trust, set up in 1884 to help educate children of Hawaiian ancestry, announced the outsourcing plan in August as part of an effort to improve efficiency by reducing management costs, taking a more passive role in its investments and making more resources available to support educational programs.
More than 100 Kamehameha Schools employees are expected to be affected, though the estate said it would negotiate with contractors to hire estate employees. Those not retained will be eligible for separation packages including pay and training support.
Details of the contracts will not be available until signed.
Honolulu-based CB is being assigned five Kaka’ako buildings, including Gold’s Gym, Alu Like and Keawe Business Center, plus a group of mostly Kalihi industrial properties….
For more on the CB Richard Ellis, Bishop Estate & Gensiro Kawamoto real estate connection, GO TO > > > How to Pluck a Billionaire
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November 10, 2003
L&L buys partner’s stake in 150 Fifth Ave.
Crain Communications
L&L Acquisitions, a Manhattan-based property owner and operator, has
bought out its partner’s 86% stake in 150 Fifth Ave. for more than $102
million.
L&L, led by CEO David Levinson and President Robert Lapidus, bought the
property in 2000 for $38 million in a partnership with private equity firm
Carlyle Group. In April 2002, the company sold a stake to Bahrain-based
investment firm Investcorp for $75 million. In the most recent deal, L&L
teamed with a German fund to buy out Investcorp’s stake.
John Fraser, an Investcorp managing director, says Investcorp typically holds its real estate properties for longer periods of time, but that lower interest rates are driving investments in real estate, particularly in buildings with long-term leases in place.
The property at 150 Fifth Avenue is an 11-story, 191,000-square-foot building with ground-floor retail space, and is 99%-leased. Constructed in 1889, the property just underwent a renovation in 2002-2003. It has since entered into a 15-year lease with EMI Music Inc., which uses the property for its North American headquarters.
CB Richard Ellis represented Investcorp in the deal. Citigroup represented L&L.
Copyright 2003, Crain Communications, Inc
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July 1, 2003
Sexual Harassment Charges Leveled Against CB Richard Ellis, Inc.
From www.classactionamerica.com
Federal civil rights legislation prohibits discrimination based on gender, age, race, or national origin. A class action has been filed against real estate services company CB Richard Ellis, Inc. on behalf of current and former female employees who allege that the company created a hostile work environment when it allowed male employees to sexually harass them in violation of Title VII of the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act….
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FOR MORE NESTS IN THE TRELLIS
GO TO:
/
THE CARLYLE GROUP: BIRDS THAT DRINK FROM CESSPOOLS
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING KAMEHAMEHA’S COURT
DIRTY MONEY, DIRTY POLITICS & BISHOP ESTATE
NEW >>> THE HARMON ARBITRATION <<< NEW
NEW >>> PARADISE PAVED <<< NEW
SUKAMTO SIA: THE INDONESIAN CONNECTION
THE VULTURES IN MAUNAWILI VALLEY
NEW >>> THE WASHINGTON BASEBALL CLUB <<< NEW
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Last Update July 30, 2004, by The Catbird