CB Commercial in merger

CB Commercial, the top real estate services company in North America and a dominant player in the Las Vegas market, has merged with the Richard Ellis empire.

The Los Angeles-based company will be known as CB Richard Ellis and will have more than 8,000 employees in more than 200 offices in 29 countries.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The merger was announced less than a week after Stuart Mixer Commercial, a locally based commercial real estate company, announced its own merger with Colliers International.

Because Richard Ellis International Ltd., based in London, had few holdings in North America, the merger is not expected to result in any layoffs nationwide. REI Ltd. is the holding company for the Richard Ellis companies outside Great Britain.

Kevin Higgins, managing director of the Las Vegas office of CB, announced the merger in a news conference at the local office at 1900 E. Flamingo Road on Monday.

Higgins said the timing of the announcement with regard to the Stuart Mixer-Collers merger was coincidental and represented no trend toward the development of a global presence in commercial real estate. He said CB approached Richard Ellis about the merger last year.

The London company is named for the man who founded it in the 18th Century.

He said the link with Richard Ellis should provide various international leads for the company to market its portfolio.

CB Commercial had 147 offices in the United States, Canada and Mexico, while Richard Ellis covers the market in Europe, Africa, South America and the Asia Pacific region. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol CBG.

Jim Didion, CB Commercial's chairman and chief executive officer, will keep those titles with CB Richard Ellis.

Separately, CB said first quarter earnings fell 14 percent as an increase in operating expenses cut into a 31 percent gain in revenue.

CB Commercial had a profit from operations of $1.97 million, or 10 cents a diluted share, compared with net income of $2.27 million, or 16 cents, in the year-earlier period. Per-share results reflect an increase in the number of shares outstanding to 18.9 million from 13.9 million.

The company's revenue rose to $175.1 million from $134.1 million. The increase reflects the purchase of rival Koll Real Estate Services for $145 million last year and a vibrant commercial real estate market, which has companies adding workers and leasing more space.

"The fundamentals of our business -- the strong and increasingly global economy, continued outsourcing of corporate real estate services needs and the ongoing consolidation among real estate services providers -- create reason for continued optimism," Didion said.

Bloomberg News contributed to this story

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