Westmac to Become Affiliated With Coldwell Banker

West Los Angeles-based Westmac Commercial Brokerage Co. has become an affiliate of Coldwell Banker Commercial in a deal that underscores the continuing consolidation in the commercial real estate brokerage business and marks the return of the Coldwell Banker Commercial name to Los Angeles County.

Westmac will continue to be independently owned and operated but will now do business under the name Coldwell Banker Commercial, Westmac, said Timothy C. Macker, founder and president of Westmac.

Macker said the affiliation will give Westmac access to an international network of 400 commercial real estate brokerage offices operated by the Coldwell Banker Commercial division of Parsippany, N.J.-based Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp., which was once one of the dominant names in commercial real estate brokerage in Southern California before it disappeared after a series of buyouts and name changes in the 1980s and ‘90s.

Westmac is the latest in a series of local commercial brokerages to have joined national networks or been acquired by national firms.

Encino-based Capital Commercial, for example, does business as NAI/Capital Commercial as a member of the NAI network; the former Seeley Co. is now known as Colliers Seeley International as part of the Colliers International network, and the former Metrospace brokerage has become CRESA Partners in an affiliation with the CRESA network. In a buyout reported last week in The Times, Long Beach commercial real estate brokerage Matlow-Kennedy Commercial Real Estate Services is being acquired by property services giant Cushman & Wakefield.

These affiliations and consolidations, Macker said, reflect changes in the commercial real estate business.

“There is a trend in which companies like ours find that the decision-makers for their clients are in other parts of the country or the world where people are not likely to be familiar with our name,” Macker said. “The Coldwell Banker affiliation gives us instant name recognition.”

The national brokerage affiliations, Macker said, are also being driven by the increasing globalization of business and the need to keep abreast of technological innovations. A large national organization with greater finances is better equipped to explore and test new real estate technology applications.

Westmac’s affiliation with Coldwell Banker, which Macker described as a franchise agreement, creates the first Coldwell Banker Commercial office in Los Angeles County since then-owner Sears, Roebuck & Co. sold the commercial side of the Coldwell Banker brokerage in 1989 to employees and investors, who changed the name to CB Commercial Real Estate Group, which later became CB Richard Ellis. As part of that 1989 deal, Coldwell Banker agreed not to provide commercial services for five years.

Westmac, established in 1988, is the first Coldwell Banker Commercial office to open in Los Angeles County since parent company Coldwell Banker reentered commercial real estate brokerage in 1996, Macker said. He said Coldwell Banker also operates commercial offices in Newport Beach and at three San Diego County locations.

When it relaunched its commercial operations in 1996, Coldwell Banker said it planned to sell 150 commercial franchises nationwide in the next five years. Westmac is the latest of 65 commercial brokerage affiliates the company added in the last year.