Colliers Grabs JLL’s Hand for APAC CEO

Real estate service provider Colliers International announced this week that David Hand has been appointed as its new CEO for Asia Pacific, replacing Piers Brunner, who resigned last August.

Hand comes to Colliers from competitor JLL where he held a variety of leadership roles over the last 18 years, serving most recently as International Director for the company’s Capital Markets team based in Hong Kong.

In his new role with Colliers, Hand will be responsible for the overall operation and management of the company’s Asia Pacific business and will drive Colliers’ strategic objectives throughout the region.

Hand will be reporting directly to Doug Frye, Global President and CEO of Colliers International, and will lead business development activities across APAC with a focus on further integrating Colliers services across geographic markets and industry verticals, the company said in a statement.

In addition to Brunner’s departure as Asia CEO last August, Colliers has also been lacking a Managing Director for its Hong Kong office since former MD Richard Kirke left to head CBRE’s Capital Markets team in October.

Colliers to Spin Off Parent Firm

The appointment of Hand was announced just one day before Colliers’s parent company, FirstService Corp, announced that it would be restructuring itself into two separate entities, leaving Colliers as an independently listed company on the NASDAQ Exchange.

According to a story in Bloomberg, FirstService will change its name to Colliers International Group Inc, and focus on commercial real estate. FirstService’s business in residential property management and other services will be spun off into a new listed company.

Colliers International will continue to be led by global president and CEO Doug Frye, and Dylan Taylor, global COO of Colliers, will also stay in his current role.

FirstService said in a statement that, following the split, Colliers will look to broaden its range of services and grow through acquisitions.

As the US real estate market recovers, there has been a surge of mergers in the agency world recently, with DTZ last month acquiring US brokerage Cassidy Turley, and Cushman & Wakefield picking up New York-based Massey Knakal in December.