Global property giant CBRE buys Burgess Rawson
Global real estate firm CBRE has bought out local commercial agency Burgess Rawson’s eastern seaboard outfit, a move that will allow it to link into the homegrown platform’s well-established network of high net worth investors.
That access will help diversify the global player’s operations and tap the growing interest that cashed-up private investors have for real estate, according to Phil Rowland, who leads CBRE in Australia and New Zealand.
“We’ve got really high conviction in the growth opportunity in that private and high net worth segment of the investment market,” Rowland told The Australian Financial Review.
“We see it as a rapidly growing segment because of the wealth accumulation there. It also is a segment of the investment market that does tend to be a little less cyclical or a little bit more resilient.
“When we look at the broader tailwinds for the Australian property market, and that’s driven by population growth, then the investible markets’ only going to expand as the population grows.”
Talks between the two companies began in September last year when CBRE approached Burgess Rawson. The pair have struck a definitive agreement, with the transaction expected to be complete in the next 45 to 60 days. The purchase price has not been disclosed.
Once finalised, CBRE’s metropolitan investments team, which manages investment and development properties under $35 million, will be led by Ingrid Filmer, chief executive at Burgess Rawson.
Burgess Rawson has more than 80 employees, brokering deals up to $100 million across the commercial real estate sector, including in early education, fast food, healthcare, large-format retail and service stations. The business is focused on smaller private and high net worth investors and completes about $1.6 billion in sales annually.
The company is best known for its popular commercial property auctions, held every six weeks in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne with a range of properties on the block valued anywhere from $300,000 to $25 million.
Burgess Rawson was established in 1976 by Christopher Burgess and Gerald Rawson. The pair eventually sold out of the business and its ownership is now split between six agents. Filmer owns just more than 20 per cent of the company.
Filmer said the industry had changed exponentially in terms of innovation and AI since she took over the helm 18 years ago and that was one of her reasons for accepting the CBRE offer.
“Burgess Rawson is an absolute-proven winner in everything that we’ve touched. But it’s about giving our private clients so much more,” she said. “It’s about giving them a full-service platform that includes consultancy valuations, depreciations, international debt, international offices.
“We really saw that as what we needed for our private clients going into the future because private wealth is changing and their needs are changing, we saw CBRE as the perfect partner to supercharge what we’re trying to achieve.”
Burgess Rawson offices operated independently until 2021 when their Melbourne office – then headed by Filmer – bought out the Sydney office and took over the Queensland outfit concurrently, establishing the brand’s combined eastern seaboard operation which she now heads. The ACT and West Australian Burgess Rawson offices remain independently owned, however.
The business has about 68 per cent of market share for transactions of service stations, 43 per cent of health care, 64 per cent of fast food drive-through operations and 53 per cent of large-format retail, she said.
“We are absolute masters of our categories,” Filmer said. “The big thing is, then to say to yourselves, well, where does growth come from in this new world? How do we deliver that to the next generation? And that’s where we thought joining with a big four was the way to go.
“It’s half-time in our grand final game. We get a whole new game to play with, with CBRE as our brand and as our future. And I just think that they’re the strongest in the big four market.”
