One of the city’s fabled real estate names just disappeared — but it’s due to success, not failure.
Savills Studley Inc. is now simply Savills Inc., dropping a name that’s been synonymous with commercial tenant representation for 65 years. The rebranding reflects how well the firm has done since London-based Savills plc bought the New York tenant-rep firm, founded by industry legend Julien J. Studley, in 1954.
“Since the acquisition in May of 2014, we grew over 55 percent in revenue in America,” said North American Chairman and CEO Mitchell Steir. “We have over 800 employees in the US,” up from 575 in 2014.
The firm grew across the US not only because business is strong, but to meet the needs of a changed leasing world.
“The business gets ever more sophisticated with each succeeding year,” Steir said. “Twenty years ago, you had maybe a broker and a consultant. Today, multidisciplinary teams are required to service major users.
“We have specialists in labor analytics, incentives, occupancy experience, project management — clients expect all those services from a single provider,” Steir said.
“What we’re really doing with the name change is to signal that we now seamlessly deliver the same tier-1 advice, services and solutions that Savills does throughout the world,” Steir added.
But there’s an important distinction. Savills Inc. will be unique in the Savills plc universe — it remains strictly a tenants’ rep firm in the US, unlike the parent company, which works for both landlords and tenants everywhere else.
Steir joined Studley in 1988 and brokered some of the era’s most transformative leases, including Time Warner’s move to Related Companies’ project at Columbus Circle with former partner Michael Colacino and law firm Jones Day’s relocation from the Grand Central area to Downtown’s Brookfield Place in 2013.
At the time, current Savills US President Mitch Rudin was Brookfield Properties’ CEO of American commercial operations. He joined Savills Studley on Jan. 1 this year.
Steir led a management buyout of the Studley firm in 2002, and became CEO the same year. Savills bought the privately held company in 2014, marking its entry into the US market. Savills plc is 160 years old and is traded on the London Stock Exchange. It boasts more than 660 offices in 71 countries worldwide.
Rudin said, “The other Mitch is too modest to say this, but I can say it — the transformation he took this company through in the US is extraordinary. He changed the entire headquarters team and it’s all working seamlessly.”
Steir recalls Julien Studley as a “colorful character who stood for excellence. That’s why we held onto the name, to give Savills time to socialize in the US,” he said.
Studley and his family fled Belgium when the Nazis invaded in 1940. He tricked the Germans by putting a Boy Scout patch on the car that “they thought was a pass” to enter France, he told the Real Deal in 2008. They next made it to Cuba and finally to New York.
The young Studley founded his brokerage in 1954 and established itself as the only major firm that represented tenants only.
Today, there are younger brokers who barely heard of Studley — but none who need to ask what Savills is.