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The relationship between Colliers International and Cleveland-based Ostendorf-Morris has dissolved after 25 years; both parties cited a mutual agreement to part ways.

Geoff Coyle

Ohio’s largest full-service commercial real estate firm will continue to operate under the Ostendorf-Morris name and will explore another affiliate relationship that offers an international platform.

Geoff Coyle, managing partner with Ostendorf-Morris, says that the firm has already held discussions with multiple possible partners, but is not at liberty to name the firms.

Colliers International and Ostendorf-Morris had been in discussions for months, but in the end, Ostendorf-Morris executives yearned for more independence than the new Colliers International platform offered.

“We have been with Colliers for 25 years and they were a very good network partner,” says Coyle. “Moving forward, Colliers wanted to change that and become a corporate brand. Essentially, we would have had to do away with the Ostendof-Morris company that we know.”

Recently, Colliers announced a move to a centrally-managed company so it could better compete with global commercial real estate giants such as Jones Lang LaSalle and CB Richard Ellis. The move instantly made the rebranded Colliers International the third largest real estate firm in the world.

Yet as with Ostendorf Morris, not every Colliers affiliate wanted to make the switch. A large group of affiliates banded together to form Cassidy Turley, a brokerage network that would function much as the former Colliers network had.

The main point of difference in the case with Ostendorf Morris and Colliers seems to formulate around the restructuring of the firm’s corporate services group.

“They wanted to centralize corporate services and oversight property management,” says Coyle. “We have a significant corporate services group here and those relationships go back 15 years. Their model (Colliers’) was not what we wanted to be.”

For now, the firm can rely on contacts through professional groups such as CCIM and SIOR for national and international business prospects, until it finds another network to join, says Coyle.

A representative for Colliers International declined to comment at this time.

Tags | Cleveland, Colliers, Ostendorf-Morris

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