Denver Business Journal, By Paula Moore
John Fuller has split from the Denver commercial real estate company he started 55 years ago because of Fuller Real Estate’s new affiliation with a national brokerage firm.
Fuller said he doesn’t want to be in the national real estate business, so he’s resigned from Fuller Real Estate, sold his stock in the company and acquired full ownership of the Fuller Western Real Estate LLC ranch brokerage firm. He declined to reveal terms.
The veteran Denver commercial broker also is adding local commercial real estate sales and leasing services at Fuller Western, and hiring seasoned brokers for that venture.
“My vision is to keep Fuller Western as a boutique firm, serving clients we have served for many years,” said Fuller, who’s now chairman and CEO of Fuller Western. He founded the company in 1994.
Fuller decided to leave his former company, which he no longer controlled, because of Fuller Real Estate’s recent affiliation with St. Louis-based Cassidy Turley, a national provider of commercial real estate services. With that deal, the firm now is Cassidy Turley Fuller Real Estate, and uses Cassidy Turley branding.
“The old company is losing its identity, including the black-and-white Fuller logo … We have the Fuller brand, the name, and we want to build on that,” John Fuller said.
Greg Morris, Fuller Real Estate’s CEO for 15 years, continues as president/CEO of Cassidy Turley Fuller. When the affiliation was announced Aug. 9, Morris said in a statement that it allows his company “to take advantage of [Cassidy Turley’s] national platform and international reach … while still remaining Denver based and employee owned.”
Fuller expects to hire six to eight commercial brokers at Fuller Western. One of Fuller’s first hires was his son, John Fuller Jr., a longtime broker at Fuller Real Estate handling office, industrial, retail, land and investment properties. Another son, Burt Fuller, is Fuller Western’s president and chief operating officer; he formerly was vice president of operations there.
Veteran Denver-area commercial broker Bob Leino, who formerly was with what’s now Fuller Real Estate and has had his own company, started with Fuller Western the week of Aug. 27.
Fuller Western has relocated its main office from Cassidy Turley Fuller’s headquarters, at the Park Central building in downtown Denver, to 7901 Southpark Plaza in Littleton. The ranch brokerage, which owns the Littleton building, also has a satellite office in La Veta.
Fuller and late partner Al Strauch started Fuller Real Estate, as Fuller and Co., in 1955 as one of metro Denver’s first commercial real estate firms. Through the years, the company added branches such as Fuller Management Services, residential brokerage Fuller Town & Country Properties and Fuller Western. The companies built the total staff to 300 people and annual gross revenue to $2 billion by the mid-2000s.
“In building a company, John surrounded himself with bright, competent people,” said John Bitzer, partner at Bitzer Real Estate Partners in Denver and former managing broker at Fuller and Co. “He knew he couldn’t do it all.”
The company changed its name to Fuller Real Estate in 2006, and sold Fuller Town & Country to Sotheby’s International Realty in 2008.
Large, national commercial real estate firms have gotten bigger and more global in recent years through mergers and acquisitions. To compete with that growth, locally owned firms such as Fuller and the Frederick Ross Co. have formed alliances with networks.
Fuller previously was associated with NAI Global, a Princeton, N.J.-based network of independent commercial real estate firms with operations in more than 50 countries.
The Denver company dropped its relationship with NAI to form a closer alliance with Cassidy Turley, details of which haven’t been revealed.
Cassidy Turley formally launched in early 2010, and is the combination of eight firms that broke away from Colliers International, Grubb & Ellis Co. (NYSE: GBE) and NAI Global.
The new company has more than 60 offices across the country, and its founding firms did more than $13 billion in real estate deals in 2009.
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