Spring 2011

Knowledge Leader

co ll iers i n ternatio nal propert y mag azine

S pr i n g 2 0 1 1

Global Citizen Former Prime Minister Tony Blair: showing what’s possible

Table Talk

What’s in store for real estate in 2011?

Giving Back

Add volunteering to your agenda

Perfect Vision

Reconnect with your passion

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contents 4 Outlook 20/20

The SIOR Foundation is helping to educate and empower today’s and tomorrow’s industry leaders.

BY Aaron Finkelstein

6 Spotlight

Record-breaking transaction in Scotland; Colliers International’s Q3 Global Investor Sentiment Survey; Q&A with Colliers U.S. CEO Dylan Taylor.

10 B2B

Add “giving back” to your next meeting agenda.

BY Annika S. Hipple

12 Working Space

The Northwest Evaluation Association finds a new home in Old Town.

YMCA : E m a P e t e r ; N o r t hw e s t E v a lu at i o n Ass o c i at i o n : G r e g g G a lb r a i t h o f R e d S t ud i o

By Jeff Bond

14 Bank Notes

With lenders and investors back in the game, what does 2011 have in store for commercial real estate?

BY KC Conway

16 Table Talk

Twelve industry experts share valuable insights on the strength of commercial real estate in markets across the United States.

By Teresa Kenney

www.knowledge-leader.com

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22 A Citizen of the World

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is uniting countries and faiths through a common goal.

BY Christine Schultz

26 Concert Performance

British Columbia real estate developer Concert Properties is focused on the future.

By Cheryl Reid-Simons

31 Behind the Scenes

Canadian and U.S. business profiles, featuring The Sorbara Group and Eventbrite.

36 Personal Biz

Looking to reduce stress and increase productivity? Start with your inbox.

by cindy whiston

37 Follow the Leader

Prepare your business for future success by reconnecting with your original passion.

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by Stewart gall

38 CSR

Investing in communities can pay big dividends.

by Jessica C. Trupin

40 In Focus

For Colliers International, charity begins at home—and abroad.

by dOUG FRYE

Cover Photo by Gene X Hwang/ Orange Photography

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Colliers international Spring 2009

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Volume 5 u Number 1

From the Editors’ Desk

Knowledge Leader

co ll i ers i n t er n at i o n a l propert y m ag a z i n e

Executive Managing Editors David Bowden

Dylan Taylor

IN BETWEEN THE LINES While there’s no question that better economic times are ahead, it’s also worth looking back at the most recent downturn to take stock of what we’ve learned. One of the positive things to emerge from the recession is the reminder of what’s genuinely important to each of us on a personal level—be it community, family or faith.

In November 2010, we at Colliers International were privileged to host “An Evening with Tony Blair,” a benefit dinner for former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s interfaith educational foundation: the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The event was attended by 600 leading community and business figures, and raised more than $500,000. The foundation is just one of many organizations under Mr. Blair’s leadership that address global challenges such as Mideast peace, religious intolerance, climate change, international poverty and stable governance.

We continue to be inspired by the example set by Mr. Blair—the subject of this issue’s cover article—and by the charitable activities of those around us. We dedicate this issue to the individuals and organizations who embody community—a core value of our organization—by fostering community involvement within our industry and world.

As you read through this issue, you’ll find articles that highlight the insight of industry leaders and organizations, including: • An exclusive interview with Mr. Blair. He discusses his plans for building new bridges between people of different faiths and backgrounds in an increasingly globalized world; • A look at the mission of the SIOR Foundation, which works to educate and enrich the real estate community and ensure the future of our industry; • A roundtable discussion among twelve industry experts who share what lies ahead for commercial real estate in 2011 across markets and sectors; and, • An article on the emerging trend of incorporating volunteer components into corporate meetings or conferences. The article includes tips on how you can build relationships and strengthen the bonds of your team by helping your community.

As part of our commitment to corporate social responsibility, we’ve donated advertising space in this issue to organizations such as Global Partnerships, One Day’s Wages, Habitat for Humanity, TisBest Philanthropy, and The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. Helping them promote their causes is a small token of appreciation for their efforts on behalf of communities at home and abroad.

We hope this issue not only increases awareness and social responsibility, but also inspires our readers to raise their sights beyond themselves and act for the greater good.

David Bowden Chief Executive Officer | Canada Colliers International

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Dylan Taylor Chief Executive Officer | USA Colliers International

Dylan Taylor and David Bowden Editor

Teresa Kenney Associate Editors

Christine Schultz and Aaron Finkelstein Art Director

Amy Wallace Project Manager

Heidi Page Contributing writers

Jeff Bond, KC Conway, Stewart Gall, Annika S. Hipple, Aaron Finkelstein, Doug Frye, Teresa Kenney, Chrystal LeBlanc, Cheryl Reid-Simons, Christine Schultz, Jessica C. Trupin, Cindy Whiston Proofreader

Amanda Castleman This magazine is published by Colliers International

To order more copies, learn about advertising options or subscribe to Knowledge Leader, visit Knowledge-leader.com.

Tiger Oak Publications 1518 First Avenue S., Suite 500 Seattle, WA 98134 Knowledge Leader is published three times annually by Tiger Oak Media, Inc., with offices at 1518 First Ave. S., Suite 500, Seattle, WA 98134; 206.284.1750. © Tiger Oak Media, Inc. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Knowledge Leader, Colliers International, 601 Union Street, Suite 4800, Seattle, WA 98101. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40064408. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: Express Messenger International, P.O. Box 25058, London, ON N6C 6A8. Printed in USA.

knowledge-leader.com

Outlook 20/20

h ot to pic s m a kin g h e a dlin es to day

Industry Leaders One foundation is helping to educate, enrich and empower current and future real estate professionals.

by Aaron Finkelstein The news is clear: times are hard, but

getting better. We’re looking closely at the state of the markets, watching for signs of improvement: vacancy and conversion rates, rent figures, new construction starts. But who’s keeping an eye out for the industry as a whole? Who is ensuring that the pipeline is filled not just with deals, but with the next generation of commercial real estate brokers?

The SIOR Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports the educational work of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR), has made it its mission “to educate, expand and enrich the real estate community.”

By providing scholarships to students and professionals, and funding local and national SIOR initiatives and events, the foundation (together with SIOR itself ) is investing in the future of the profession.

Nearly everyone in the industry is familiar with SIOR, the leading commercial and industrial real estate brokerage association.

Its more than 3,000 members in 580 cities in 28 countries are recognized transaction professionals and market leaders, closing an average of 30 deals a year each. Brokers are distinguished by the SIOR designation as mature, experienced professionals with a deep commitment to increasing their expertise and skills throughout their career.

As an organization, SIOR is a respected authority in the commercial real estate industry, providing advisory reports and data to the federal government and municipalities. SIOR’s Center for Career Advancement (CCA) provides industry-leading training, publications and educational resources to brokers of all tenures.

And, while SIOR member dues address some of these expenses, SIOR’s work in educating and growing the industry would be impossible without the support of the SIOR Foundation and its thousands of donors.

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to educate, expand and enrich the real estate community.

The foundation will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2012, but education has always been a core focus: the original project in 1962 was to publish the first graduate-level textbook for industrial realtors. The leadership of the foundation envisions one day offering full scholarships at every college or university with an accredited real estate program.

Colliers International’s Allen Gump, SIOR, CCIM—who assumed the foundation’s presidency at the beginning of 2011—says that the foundation has become an important way for SIOR members to contribute to their community and their industry. “SIORs are, as a general rule, very successful real estate brokers. The SIOR Foundation really exemplifies those who have made giving back a serious part of their lives,” notes Gump.

Over the past decade, the foundation has awarded over $1 million in support through matching fund programs with local SIOR chapters for scholarships, grant programs,

internships and community outreach. The foundation also supplies direct grants for curriculum development, industry research, and its own scholarships such as the Mildred C. Hanson, SIOR, Memorial Scholarship, which is awarded to outstanding female undergraduates pursuing real estate studies.

In the last fiscal year (ending August 2010) the foundation gave more than $135,000 in educational contributions, nearly $95,000 of which was in the form of matching funds awarded back to SIOR chapters.

The SIOR Foundation also provided more than $75,000 in matching funds for scholarships, the majority to college students pursuing real estate studies in accredited programs.

Although this is part of the foundation’s work year in and year out, Gump recognizes that such contributions are as important as ever right now. “Many of the best and brightest students that we see in graduate-level real estate studies are working their way through knowledge-leader.com

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Over the past decade, the SIOR

Foundation has awarded over $1 million in support through matching fund programs with local SIOR chapters for scholarships, grant programs, internships and community outreach.

college and have to take on significant student loans. This can be a difficult business for someone coming right out of college at the best of times; an economy like this makes it that much harder,” says Gump.

“I remain hopeful,” says SIOR Immediate Past President Lynn Reich, SIOR, CCIM, FRICS. Reich, a 30-year veteran of commercial real estate and executive vice president of Colliers International in greater Chicago, sees encouraging signs in this past year’s increase in SIOR applications, and the success of the SIOR Foundation’s December fundraising phone-a-thon, which raised more than $140,000. Although she agrees starting out in a commission-based business can be challenging, she notes, “If you have the entrepreneurial bent, you’re going to evaluate your risk versus reward, your upside. We’re an entrepreneurial nation, and as long as there’s business to be done, young people will continue to pursue our industry.”

Reich and SIOR’s leadership are focused knowledge-leader.com

on the future of the industry, and, she notes, “making sure there’s a pipeline of young folks who aspire to be in our business.” They have plans to mobilize the young professional segment within SIOR—members under the age of 45—to engage those interested in real estate careers, and also to be more active within the existing membership. What’s more, the SIOR Foundation this year funded an update to the core SIOR CCA professional courses, and will underwrite revisions of many of the electives in 2011-12. “We want to ensure that SIOR continues to provide value, and our offering is relevant to the next generation coming up,” explains Reich.

This curriculum development is only one example of the SIOR Foundation’s many other activities beyond awarding scholarships. The foundation funds university programs in real estate studies, grants money to support research and articles (including, in 2009-2010, more than a dozen articles in SIOR’s Professional Report industry magazine), and has helped

local chapters commission municipal-marketcondition report cards for the use of developers and companies planning to relocate. The SIOR Foundation also assists chapters with their community outreach programs, matching educational speaker fees at industry events that are often combined with a charitable event.

The foundation accomplishes all this with a corpus built entirely on donations. “SIOR members provide a significant amount of the capital we use to fund educational programs,” says Gump, but the foundation does not receive support from SIOR membership dues.

The SIOR Foundation has proposed “The 1% Solution,” a call for SIOR members to make a tax-deductible donation of one percent of all their commissions, whether on their own deals or those on which they’ve collaborated with other SIORs. Although financial donations are important, Reich notes there are many further ways to contribute: “You can teach courses, lead roundtables, serve on committees, be a regional director. We would always like to see more professionals get involved.” K L

The SIOR Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit organization that solicits and accepts charitable contributions, which are tax-deductible for income, estate and gift tax purposes. For more information, visit www.siorfoundation.org.

Colliers international spring 2011

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spot l ig h t the people, places

and events shaping the industry

>Market Watch

Survey Says Colliers releases global sentiment survey In December 2010, Colliers International released its Q3 Global Investor Sentiment Survey, which documents increasing—albeit restrained— optimism among leading real estate investors worldwide.

Following up on the 2010 first-quarter survey, this new report revisits the state of global markets as seen by more than 200 major institutional and private investors representing a combined investment 6

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portfolio exceeding $700 billion. The overall picture the survey paints is that of a market limping forward, with the majority of investors still committed to expanding their real estate holdings in 2011, focusing primarily on their own domestic markets.

The methodology was the same as in the first-quarter survey: respondents were asked to visualize the real estate market cycle in terms of a clock face called the Global Property Clock, with the top and bottom of the market cycle at 12 and 6 o’clock respectively.

Down markets are represented by the right side of the Global Property Clock, and recovery is said to have begun when the hand passes 6:00.

Participants were also asked to pinpoint the state of their markets in 12 months, assess specific market indicators, and describe their general attitudes regarding portfolio expansion and risk.

The survey clearly shows an improving outlook among investors worldwide. At the outset of the fourth quarter, 75 percent of respondents assessed their regions of the world as at or past bottom, with the largest portion (21 percent) fixing their markets at 8:00 or on the upswing, characterized by rising demand and firming rents.

This is significantly more positive than the response given in the first quarter of 2010, when the median answer placed the market at around 5:30.

Also improved over the 2010 first quarter results were investors’ perceptions of the availability of debt: 44 percent reported easier access to debt than in the previous twelve months, and 56 percent reported the cost of debt was either the same or lower than it had been a year prior.

When asked to look ahead to 2011, the general outlook continues the positive trend. Forty percent predicted their regions would be at either 8:00 or 9:00 on the Global Property Clock in 12 months’ time; close to 80 percent believe debt will be more readily available— although 44 percent believe at an increased cost.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents worldwide feel that a doubledip recession was unlikely in their markets or regions. The greatest caution in making such a prediction was shown by respondents from the Mideast/Africa region, who were divided roughly 50/50, and the United States, where 59 percent do not expect a double-dip crisis.

Strongly limiting enthusiasm was the concern expressed by a majority of surveyed investors that capitalization (cap) rates would remain unchanged in 2011, with the second-largest group believing that office and retail cap rates would drop as much as 25 basis points.

How does this brighter outlook translate into action? Sixty percent of investors worldwide say they will look to expand their portfolios in the next 12 months, while only 9 percent plan to reduce their knowledge-leader.com

>Transactions of Note

Q3 Global Investor Sentiment Survey respondents were asked to visualize their markets’ real estate cycles in terms of a clock called the Global Property Clock.

The sale of Freescale Semiconductor Inc.’s manufacturing campus in Dunfermline, Scotland was the only sizeable commercial real estate transaction in the country since the end of the fourth quarter of 2008.

Let’s Make a Deal

Scotland enjoys its largest commercial real estate transaction since 2008

holdings. Overall, these numbers continue the trend from the 2010 first-quarter survey, although in the United States a strong majority (65 percent) of investors have plans to sell property over the coming year (up from 23 percent in the first quarter of 2010).

By and large, respondents were not interested in cross-border investments. Only 30 percent reported that they are considering investing outside their domestic markets. Western Europe was a notable exception, where twice as many investors—62 percent versus 30 percent in the first quarter of 2010—are considering opportunities outside their own countries. The most frequently mentioned markets for cross-border investments were New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., London, Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong.

To read the complete Q3 Global Investor Sentiment Survey, visit www.colliers.com/research. knowledge-leader.com

Colliers International and the global advisory firm Advanced Technology Resource Group (ATREG) facilitated the successful sale of Freescale Semiconductor Inc.’s advanced technology manufacturing campus located in Dunfermline, Scotland (United Kingdom). The sale of the Dunfermline property is the only sizeable commercial real estate transaction to have occurred in Scotland since the end of the fourth quarter of 2008. The success of this project was the result of a combined global, regional and local marketing effort, as well as the dedication and determination of all the teams involved.

Built in 1997 by another semiconductor manufacturer, the campus was not fully completed when purchased, and had never been occupied. Colliers International, in conjunction with ATREG, worked hand in hand with Freescale Semiconductor to turn a challenging offering that had been three years on the market into an attractive proposition for local acquirer Shepherd Offshore Services Ltd., which is headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K. Colliers international spring 2011

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spot l ig h t > Q&A

executive insight with:

Dylan Taylor

Chief Executive Officer | USA, Colliers International

If you could have dinner with any public figure, who would it be and why?

Until about two months ago, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair would have been at or near the top of that list. Having had the honor of doing just that in San Francisco at a fundraiser for his foundation, I would now say Nelson Mandela. I feel that in both business and politics, what’s really lacking is courage: the willingness to do the things that everyone knows need to be done, but few are willing to step up and do—or inspire others to do. Mandela is a prime example of someone who has shown exceptional courage, and has overcome substantial obstacles in order to achieve his vision.

Have any role models or mentors been influential in your life and career?

My dad has been my most important role model. I have learned from him the importance of a strong work ethic. He also showed me the importance of conducting yourself in an open and honest way, which I believe is essential to instilling trust and creating accountability for yourself and others. Without trust and accountability, there can be no leadership.

What advice would you give to someone entering the business?

I’ve always said that achieving your goals is actually the easy part: the hard part is figuring out what it is you believe in, and what you really want to accomplish in life. Once you 8

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have that, it’s really all just about hard work and determination to achieve those goals. But I think a lot of people get tripped up at the beginning, because they’re not really clear on what it is they’re trying to achieve. Once you know what you want, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t get there. No one has the power to overcome your will to succeed.

How are you involved in your community?

My personal community involvement is centered around the issues I feel most strongly about: health and children. I serve on the board of a nonprofit foundation that operates a center for the treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect. The foundation is not only a national leader in treatment programs, but also in raising awareness and educating caregivers to break the cycle of abuse.

One of the things I’ve observed in my work with the foundation is the enormous impact you can make as a business leader, not just in terms of lending your time and effort, but your resources as well. As business leaders, we should look at community involvement not just as something that would be nice to do, but as an obligation. Because of the positions we hold, it’s our responsibility to help make a difference in the communities we serve.

What are your favorite business books?

I am not a big fan of business books, to be honest. I think in general they oversimplify and commercialize what are actually fairly

complex business issues. For me, the key element of being successful in business is good decision-making ability—good judgment, if you will. And that’s not something you can develop from reading business books. That being said, there are some titles out there that help tell the story of important concepts.

Good to Great (Collins, 2001) and Built to Last (Collins & Porras, 2004) present some important business concepts in a way that’s easy for people to understand.

What are your predictions for the industry in 2011?

I think the office sector will be the next to rebound, following the pattern we saw in the multifamily sector recovery, starting in major global gateway markets like New York City, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.

In a better economy, the slow rate of new development would be a limiting factor, but vacancy rates have been steadily declining in these markets since the second quarter of 2010, and Class A office occupiers are going to be strongly motivated to make decisions before they lose all leverage.

Any words to live by?

The only obstacles in life are the ones you create for yourself. K L knowledge-leader.com

B2B

busin ess to busin ess tips

Building Relationships While Giving Back Adding volunteer opportunities to your conferences and meetings can create lasting benefits for your business, staff and colleagues. By Annika S. Hipple The next time your company, division or department crafts

the agenda for a retreat, conference or multi-day meeting, consider adding something to the schedule that seemingly has nothing to do with your day-to-day operations: community service.

There’s a growing trend to include corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in conferences and meetings, not only for the benefit of host communities, but also to build strong relationships among meeting participants. It’s all part of a broader movement in the corporate world toward considering people and the planet in addition to profit.

“We’re getting more and more requests in terms of, ‘If we wanted to give back to the community, what could we do?’” says Mike Smith, vice president of convention sales for Travel Portland (Ore.). “It’s becoming something that associations are trying to build into their agendas.”

Opportunities are seemingly endless and address a variety of social issues. Groups might box items for distribution to those in need, prepare meals at a soup kitchen, pound nails for a Habitat for Humanity project, paint over graffiti, pick fruit on a working farm, clear invasive weeds in a city park, or participate together in a 5K walk/run for charity.

Christie Blake, owner of Northwest Green Event Management, recently coordinated the International Ecotourism Society’s 2010 Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference (ESTC) in Portland, Ore. “My goal was to embrace the local community and really highlight what they have to offer and what they’re all about,” she says. “Bringing in the ‘voluntourism’ aspect really created a nice balance.”

Tourism consultant Joe Staiano took part in the ESTC’s (This page) Volunteers meet the children who receive bikes built in a Run Brain Run event. (Opposite page, left) Run Brain Run’s community service projects are both worthwhile and entertaining. (Opposite page, center) At the 2010 Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference in Portland, Ore., conference attendees also helped to restore trails at the Columbia Springs Environmental Education Center. (Opposite page, right) “Puppy cuddling” sessions by the Pacific Assistance Dog Society help dogs-in-training become comfortable in new situations.

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pre-conference, half-day volunteer activity at the Columbia Springs Environmental Education Center. Participants restored trails, removed invasive species and prepared interpretive exhibits. Staiano calls the experience “dirty, sweaty, physical, fun and very worthwhile,” adding, “Besides being productive and fun, this was an absolutely wonderful way for conference participants from different cities, countries and various tourism professions to come together.”

“A lot of times it really is about the bonding experience,” says Smith. “The giving back is obviously very important, but you make a lot of friends at these events just by doing something weird and different together.”

In July of 2010, Vancouver, British Columbia hosted the international conference World Education Congress (WEC) for Meeting Professionals International—one of the leading industry associations for corporate and private event planners around the world. Prior to the conference, a group of registrants spent an afternoon clearing weeds from salmon-bearing streams with the Pacific Streamkeepers Federation, a Canadian nonprofit organization. Participants also filled clothing racks with women’s professional attire for donation to Dress for Success, an international nonprofit that helps prepare disadvantaged women entering the workforce.

One of the more popular volunteer opportunities at the WEC, however, was the scheduled “puppy cuddling” sessions offered by the Pacific Assistance Dog Society (PADS), which raises and trains assistance dogs for individuals with disabilities. Interacting with conference attendees allowed the puppiesin-training to become comfortable with noise and crowds, as well as new people and knowledge-leader.com

surroundings. Interacting with the puppies, on the other hand, enabled participants to meet each other in a relaxed, fun setting and bond over a shared love of animals.

Incorporating CSR activities into a meeting not only benefits the host city, but will also show your employees how important it is to give back to their own communities, says Linda Post Bushkofsky, executive director of Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which includes a wide range of volunteer opportunities at its triennial conference in 2011.

Regional convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs) can be excellent resources for identifying CSR opportunities that best fit your company’s interests. They usually have contacts with a diverse array of local organizations, and many CVBs now have Web pages and staff dedicated to voluntourism.

Planning a CSR component into your next meeting, conference or retreat can be as simple as asking participants to donate to a cause, or as complex as coordinating hands-on activities for large numbers of people. Still, it’s not just a matter of selecting a cause and letting organizations know you’re ready to help. “Organizations always need help, but if you call up and say ‘I’m sending over a hundred volunteers,’ it kind of freaks them out,” says Smith.

One solution is to work with a middleman organization like the Canadian charity Evergreen, which coordinates stewardship projects in parks and public spaces, enabling volunteer groups to build on the ongoing work of local organizations. “When a group comes in with 40 or 50 or 60 people, you can get a lot done. It gives a great shot in the arm to local community efforts,” says Regional Program

Manager Andrew Appleton of Evergreen’s British Columbia branch.

Another alternative is to work with a company that specializes in team building. Seattle-based EverGreen Escapes offers a variety of outdoor activities including habitat restoration, trail building and environmental research. “One of the things that we excel at is connecting the dots: picking up, dropping off, providing lunch, providing a well-rounded program,” says Chief Outings Officer Dan Moore. “On top of that we do a lot of combining of programs. For example, we might do a big push to restore a riparian zone and then do a wine tasting or celebratory dinner—things that the host organization may not have the staff or expertise to do.”

Community-oriented games are another team-building option. “Giving back to community often does not equal fun immediately in people’s minds,” says Game Director David Schargel of Run Brain Run, which offers activities such as competitive community-building challenge games and building bicycles for Boys and Girls Clubs.

A well-planned volunteer or CSR program creates tangible benefits for local communities and lasting memories and relationships for your employees. Travel Portland incorporated a bikebuilding activity into a recent trip for planners scouting potential venues and activities for future meetings or conferences. After bonding with each other to build the bikes, participants got to meet the final recipients. “Tears were flowing freely because the kids were so excited,” recounts Smith. “It was a really great, feel-good thing.”

And it’s a feeling that could potentially pay dividends as your employees return to the office with a renewed sense of working as a team. K L Colliers international spring 2011

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sm a rt d esig n fo r t h e wo rk pl ace

Northwest Evaluation Association’s new Portland, Ore., headquarters is in the city’s historic Old Town neighborhood.

Culture Change A Nonprofit’s new urban location inspires more than just a change of address. By Jeff Bond If you were looking for an example of how office space can play a crucial role in an organiza-

tion’s cultural change, you needn’t look any further than the new headquarters of the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) in Portland, Ore. For the past 33 years, NWEA—a nonprofit education services organization that specializes in computer-based assessment tests for school districts—called the Portland suburb Lake Oswego home. But beginning in 2006, executives at the company felt it was time for a change—a major cultural change.

So its management team, led by President and Chief Executive Officer Matt Chapman, and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Strickler, began a series of conversations with Senior Vice Presidents Mike Holzgang and Gordon King of Colliers International, regarding the search for a new home base.

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The team wanted a headquarters that would better meet their corporate needs, as well as the long-term goals of its 300 employees. Part of that equation included leaving the suburbs behind. So after a third of a century in Lake Oswego, NWEA made the decision to move to downtown Portland.

“It made sense for us to be in an urban setting,” says Jean Fleming, NWEA’s director of marketing. “We felt that moving the headquarters downtown would help us tap into a larger talent pool.”

NWEA found its perfect address when the Port of Portland decided to build a new headquarters and vacate its seven-story office space in the city’s historic Old Town neighborhood.

NWEA’s decision represents the largest relocation on record of a business moving from the suburbs to Portland’s central business core.

The organization’s new 107,000-square-foot building is in the process of being Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified and includes two floors of parking. It’s also a block from a waterfront park that runs along the banks of the Willamette River.

And while the prime location was certainly one of the key factors in their decision to move into the building, NWEA executives also wanted the interior design of the office space to reflect their organization’s philosophy. They wanted an environment that would inspire employees to freely share ideas, make new connections and build a stronger team. After surveying employees and working with consultants, it was determined that the best way to achieve this was to break down the walls—both literally and figuratively—between employees.

The end result is an open-space layout with few walls and absolutely no private offices—not even for top executives.

“It’s the commitment of this company that no one will have an office situation, not even the CEO or the CFO,” Fleming says. “We are completely committed to this type of collaborative environment.”

This desire to create an environment of collaboration is clear as soon as you walk through the main entrance and into a large, interactive gathering space. Visitors can grab a beverage in the lobby’s World Café before relaxing in the open space to talk and share ideas. There are also large and small meeting rooms in the lobby area, as well as casual break-out spaces. Paul Gibbons, a principal at WGS Planned Interior knowledge-leader.com

G r e g g G a lb r a i t h o f R e d S t ud i o

working space

and Design, the firm that redesigned the interiors, describes the lobby as the company’s “living room,” complete with comfortable seating.

The building’s preexisting design included old-growth Douglas fir timbers that were first used in the construction of the Port of Portland terminals in the 1920s. The wood had been resawn for decorative interior uses. WGS retained those original timbers and added new pieces into the mix.

“It is just a fantastic look,” Project Manager Jeff West says of the timber aesthetic throughout the lobby. “The design of the space essentially uses the old wood and some new timbers in the features, which will blend together over time.”

The four floors of workspace feature open floor plans. Work stations were pulled away from the windows, allowing natural light to fill the rooms. Far from the usual “cube farm”

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creativity, and rebrand the building with NWEA’s corporate identity as a student-centric organization.

“As you move through the building during the course of the day, the colors add a refreshing feeling on each floor,” Gibbons says. “Each floor is unique unto itself, but the palette, as a whole, is coordinated.”

Even employee breaks are seen as potential moments for collaboration. Each of the four floors has a coffee bar, but only the fourth floor includes a lunchroom where associates can warm up their meals, and sit and talk. The intention is to encourage employees on other floors to visit the lunchroom, leading to more interaction between associates who might not otherwise mingle.

The fourth floor also offers access to a 3,000-square-foot outdoor balcony, where

associates can eat or hold meetings on nice days.

Another fun perk is the office ping pong room, featuring floor tiles cut to look like dozens of ping pong balls.

Among the many cultural changes for NWEA is a new appreciation for mass transit. While most employees drove to work at the suburban Lake Oswego offices, they can now instead use light rail, which stops directly in front of the downtown location. Fleming says she’ll actually be able to walk to work.

“I think the building is inspiring in many different ways,” Fleming says. “It makes people think about our brand in a big, bold manner. It also inspires collaboration and is allowing us to work in a 21st-century manner.” K L

“It’s the commitment of this company that no one will have an office situation, not even the CEO or the CFO.” – Jean Fleming,

Northwest Evaluation Association

layout, the spaces were outfitted with organic, naturally shaped work stations and furniture.

Teams of four or six people can configure their stations so they can turn in their chairs and have visual access to each other.

The configuration also allows for a number of intimate, out-of-the-way spaces where small groups of employees can gather to discuss and work on projects. And more than 1,000 feet of white boards have been placed on walls throughout the headquarters—from the lobby on up—to encourage creativity and brainstorming.

The designers also added some visual pop to the vertical lines of the floors by including various forms of soffit lighting fixtures—some recessed, others extending down from the ceiling. The resulting aesthetic adds an appealing, eye-catching element to the rooms.

No detail was too small for the office redesign, including the choice of a Caribbean-inspired color palette of bright blue, orange and green.

The bright colors add a touch of fun and knowledge-leader.com

The new offices were outfitted with organic, natural-shaped work stations and furniture.

Designers used a Caribbean-inspired color palette of bright blue, orange and green.

Colliers international spring 2011

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Bank Notes

Co m m erci a l Fin a n cin g N e ws

What Lies Ahead Capital is available. But Is investing in commercial real estate too risky in 2011? By KC Conway As we navigate our way into 2011, having

survived the turbulent waters of the past two years, there’s no better time to take a step back to assess the risks and opportunities that lie ahead for commercial real estate (CRE).

According to the financial research firm Moody’s Corporation, CRE values declined approximately 45 percent—peak to trough— from 2007 to 2010. Moving into 2011, the traditional sources of CRE debt capital are beginning to salivate at the opportunity to invest in CRE again. In fact, an estimated $165 billion of debt capital is committed to provide permanent debt financing for CRE in 2011.

In addition, real estate investment trusts (REITs) have raised an estimated $70 billion to go shopping for CRE in 2011, and some are even evaluating new development opportunities as banks opt to retain and work out their distressed portfolios, rather than release them onto the market for sale.

New development is being considered in markets with some or all of the following characteristics: • No barriers to entry, such as anti-growth zoning or geographic barriers; • Limited overbuilding with manageable supply imbalance; • Job growth; and, • Stabilized or improving rents.

Markets meeting these criteria include Austin, Texas, and Baltimore, Md. Life insurance companies are also back in the game. According to the American Council of Life Insurers and the National Conference of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NACREIF), life insurance companies have plans to commit approximately $45 billion toward permanent CRE debt financing in 2011. It’s projected that insurance company lenders—like MetLife, ING and Great-West Life—hope to underwrite and invest permanent CRE debt equivalent to 1.5 to 2 times the total 2010 commercial-backed mortgage securities (CMBS) issuance—or $15 billion 14

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to $20 billion. In fact, total CMBS issuance is expected to triple in 2011, increasing from $16 billion in 2010 to $50 billion in 2011.

On the flip side of the coin, the risks for CRE debt are three-fold: • Federal Reserve Board monetary policy and long-term interest rates; • Continued deterioration in CMBS; and, • Unrealized CRE losses in the banks that threaten to further undermine their capital ratios.

Although the Federal Reserve has tools to influence short-term interest rates, long-term interest rates are harder to manage because of U.S. dependence on foreign capital to finance its growing debt. Foreign investors—who now hold in excess of 50 percent of the U.S. long-term debt—have become increasingly concerned about the second round of quantitative easing and the resulting impact on the value of the dollar. Additional concerns include rising U.S. deficits, the fragility of the U.S. economic recovery, and the ability of the United States to grow out of its debt.

Historically, foreign investor response has been to demand a higher yield in return for the heightened credit risk. With trillions of dollars in U.S. debt coming due over the next two to five years for property owners, corporations and state and municipal governments, long-term interest rates are likely to be higher by the end of 2011. This could cause capitalization (cap) rates to rise and debt service coverage ratios to erode. The impact from both would complicate and adversely impact CRE refinancing.

CMBS’ ability to deliver on $50 billion in new issuance in 2011 may be determined by the performance of maturing legacy CMBS debt. If delinquency rates and the volume of loans being transferred to special servicing are any indication of performance, there is reason to anticipate turbulent waters for new CMBS issuance in 2011.

The reason CMBS defaults have not been a material problem to date is because a large percentage of the legacy issuance that was due to mature in

2009 and 2010 was refinanced in late 2007 and the first half of 2008. This happened just prior to the start of the financial crisis, so the maturity volume of legacy CMBS was manageable. In 2010, for example, CMBS maturities were just shy of $25 billion. However, in 2011, CMBS maturities will rise to $60 billion. And by 2016, CMBS maturities will exceed $120 billion.

According to Moody’s Delinquency Tracker, at the end of 2010, the number of delinquent CMBS loans totaled $53 billion. In the United States, the South has the highest percentage of delinquent loans, while multifamily continues to lead among property types for the most amount of delinquency, with loans totaling $13.7 billion.

More importantly, though, is the rise in “loss severity” for CMBS loans that default. For 1998 to 2008, vintage CMBS loss severity totaled 38 percent. However, if you extract those loans with losses at less than 2 percent, loss severity climbs above 50 percent to 51.5 percent. For defaulting loans since June 2010, loss severity has risen from 60 percent to 61.6 percent. If these types of defaults persist, and loss severities remain elevated above 50 percent, CRE debt capital may retrench and wait for calmer and more stable values.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, federal bank regulators issued a joint policy document entitled CRE Loan Workout Guidance. It directed banks to pursue “prudent loan workouts as long as the restructuring was economically better than the alternative of foreclosure.” As a result, banks have been engaged in a variety of troubleddebt restructure strategies that have deferred recognition on CRE losses. Re-appraisals have been substituted with internal evaluations by unlicensed bank staff or broker price opinions (BPOs). These are now being replaced with material change letters, which are essentially statements that market conditions have not changed materially, thus mitigating the need for an update appraisal.

What all this translates to is an avoidance of the real losses in bank CRE portfolios to knowledge-leader.com

Total Delinquencies as a Percent of Outstanding Balance CMBS Conduit and Fusion Universe

9.00% 8.00% 7.00% 6.00% 5.00% 4.00% 3.00% 2.00%

Dec 10 Sep 10

Jun 10

Sep 10

Jun 10

Mar 10

Dec 09

Jun 09

Sep 09

Mar 09

Dec 08

Jun 08

Sep 08

Dec 07

Mar 08

Jun 07

Sep 07

Mar 07

Dec 06

Jun 06

Sep 06

Mar 06

Dec 05

Jun 05

Sep 05

Mar 05

Dec 04

Jun 04

Sep 04

Dec 03

Mar 04

Jun 03

Sep 03

Mar 03

Dec 02

Jun 02

Sep 02

Dec 01

Mar 02

Jun 01

0.00%

Sep 01

1.00%

Jun-01 Jun-02 Jun-03 Jun-04 Jun-05 Jun-06 Jun-07 Jun-08 Jun-09 Jun-10 Dec-01 Mar-02 Dec-02 Mar-03 Dec-03 Mar-04 Dec-04 Mar-05 Dec-05 Mar-06 Dec-06 Mar-07 Dec-07 Mar-08 Dec-08 Mar-09 Dec-09 Mar-10 Dec-10 Sep-01 Sep-02 Sep-03 Sep-04 Sep-05 Sep-06 Sep-07 Sep-08 Sep-09 Sep-10

Data as of end of December 2010

Total Delinquencies as a Percent of Outstanding Balance Core Property Types

18.00%

Hotel

Hotel

18.00%

Industrial

Multifamily

Industrial

Office

Multifamily

Office

Retail

Retail

15.00%

15.00% 12.00%

12.00%

9.00%

9.00% M o o dy ’s I n v esto rs S e r v i c e

6.00%

Dec 10

Mar 10

Sep 09

Dec 09

Jun 09

Mar 09

Sep 08

Dec 08

Jun 08

Mar 08

Sep 07

Dec 07

Jun 07

Mar 07

Sep 06

Dec 06

Jun 06

Mar 06

Sep 05

Dec 05

Jun 05

Mar 05

Sep 04

Dec 04

Jun 04

Dec 03

Mar 04

Sep 03

Jun 03

Mar 03

Dec 02

Jun 02

Sep 02

Dec 01

Mar 02

3.00%

Jun 01

0.00%

Sep 01

3.00%

6.00%

Sep 10

Dec 10

Jun 10

Mar 10

Sep 09

Dec 09

Jun 09

Mar 09

Dec 08

Sep 08

Jun 08

Mar 08

Dec 07

Sep 07

Jun 07

Mar 07

Dec 06

Sep 06

Jun 06

Mar 06

Dec 05

Sep 05

Jun 05

Mar 05

Sep 04

of distressed assets could flood the market and result in further value declines.

Although capital appears to be returning to commercial real estate, there are some uncertainties that cloud a clear crystal-ball forecast and bear monitoring, including a new Congress, the Federal Reserve monetary policy and the strength of the U.S. economic recovery. How these factors impact interest rates, property values, and the resolution of over-leveraged CRE facing refinancing will determine whether or not we continue to move forward in a positive direction. K L Dec 04

Mar 04

Dec 03

Sep 03

Jun 03

Mar 03

Dec 02

Jun 02

knowledge-leader.com

Sep 02

Dec 01

Mar 02

Jun 01

Sep 01

0.00% mitigate the need for banks to raise additional capital. Because banks hold the largest portion of total CRE debt (45 percent or $1.4 trillion of the outstanding $3.3 trillion in total CRE debt), how these loans are resolved will impact overall property values. If banks are permitted to continue holding CRE at values above the market, the volume of distressed CRE will have a minimal impact on overall property values. If, however, this “extend strategy” promulgated by the bank regulatory community changes with the new Congress, a large volume

Jun 04

Data as of end of December 2010

(Top) The Moody’s Delinquency Tracker increased 15 basis points to end October at 8.39 percent. This is the second consecutive month of sub-20 basis point increases to the total CMBS conduit/fusion delinquency rate. (Below) According to Moody’s, retail remains one of the better performing property types, along with office and industrial.

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Table Talk

Twelve industry experts sat down with Knowledge Leader to share valuable insights on what lies ahead for commercial real estate across the United States.

By Teresa Kenney

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knowledge-leader.com

Rarely are you fortunate enough to meet with

commercial real estate experts from around the United States to discuss how the industry is faring as we emerge from the recession. But that’s precisely what happened this past December, when Knowledge Leader sat down with a dozen of real estate’s most respected professionals to discuss where the industry was a year ago and where it’s headed in 2011 and beyond. What they revealed may surprise you.

Roundtable Participants and their markets (in alphabetical order):

Lori Allen, Manager, National Retail Services Group (Boston) Jon Barry, President, Retail Services Group (Atlanta)

Knowledge Leader: Let’s start off the discussion with one of the hardest hit sectors in our already hard-hit industry: retail. Patrick, what were you seeing in your market at the beginning of 2010?

The grocers have remained pretty steady throughout this entire downturn, as well. The problem that they’ve run into is the development community has shut down. So some grocers have started to self-develop.

David Burden, Broker, Tenant Representation (Chicago)

Patrick Duffy: National brand retailers were still frozen coming out of 2009 in terms of significant new store activity. In late ’08 and ’09 they switched their focus from opening new stores to concentrating on operational efficiency to lean up their organizations. Coming into 2010, that was still the mindset. As the year progressed, retail sales started to show improvement, albeit moderate. So while store openings had not been robust in 2010, the activity in terms of retailers filling their 2011 and 2012 pipelines increased.

Michael Fay: Many retailers have been going to their developers of choice and offering a flat fee, period, end of story. They are telling the developer, “look, we are going to pay you x amount of dollars to build a store for us and that’s it.”

Bob Eaton, Executive Managing Director, Colliers International Hotels (San Francisco)

Craig Robbins: So you’re saying that they are going to grow their stores in the next few years?

Duffy: Their store count will start to increase again, yes.

Right now, all the franchise businesses are starting out fairly strong. Some of those individuals who were laid off are now saying, “I’m just going to go buy a franchise and get going.”

And we’re hearing from the big box retailers as well. However, the retailers whose client base and sales depend heavily on the housing market—such as Home Depot, Lowe’s or furniture retailers—they are all still very quiet. knowledge-leader.com

Lori Allen: One of the positive signs for the retail market was the attendance numbers for the International Conference of Shopping Centers (ICSC) Deal Making Conference, which was held in New York City this past December. The activity at that show was leaps and bounds over last year’s. This show is typically second in attendance to ICSC Las Vegas, and at its peak it brought in over 8,500 attendees. In 2009, however there were maybe 5,000 at most. This year I think they had close to 6,500. There was a lot of positive energy, positive buzz. It seems to me that activity level on all fronts is starting to pick up.

Jon Barry: We’re seeing the same retail leasing activity here. There’s a gradual improvement.

My biggest concern is that with the absence of new development, when retailers begin to seek additional space in a year or so, it won’t be there.

Patrick Duffy, Principal, Corporate Services (Houston)

Michael Fay, President, South Florida (Miami) Scott Harper, Senior Vice President (San Francisco) Mike Kent, President, Real Estate Management Services (Los Angeles) Ross Moore, Chief Economist Craig Robbins, Chief Knowledge Officer & President, Client Services Mike Spears, Senior Vice President, Principal (Atlanta) Kitty Wallace, Senior Vice President (Los Angeles) Colliers international spring 2011

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“

Businesses are starting to

talk about expansions and/or backfilling some of their spaces that were underutilized. People have started to talk about expanding and rehiring.

Ross Moore: Jon, as I travel across the country, one thing that continues to strike me are these empty, abandoned, primarily big box, stores. What happens to those?

Barry: More often than not, they re-fill. Where they are left vacant too long, they were built in poorly chosen locations where the market itself has moved away due to shifts in demographics or has yet to materialize. But generally there is an alternative user for that box: dollar stores, thrift stores, fitness centers and medical—a myriad of new users—are backfilling those spaces.

Duffy: In some markets, retailers expanded because of new housing developments. But no one was actually buying and moving into those houses.

Thanks to improved retail activity in 2010, some retailers have increased their development plans in the pipeline for 2011 and 2012.

Barry: Yes, a large portion of the vacancy numbers that you hear include shopping centers in ex-urban areas that should not have been built.

When you carve that out of the total vacancy numbers, you’re left with limited options for a national tenant seeking a well-located 3,000-square-foot space. You can’t take a 40,000-square-foot former Circuit City property and divide it into separate small spaces. So for small to mid-sized quality retailers coming back into the market, there are not going to be a lot of good spaces for them to consider.

Moore: What’s interesting is we may find ourselves in a situation where there is a genuine need for new development, but the banks are going to look at that top-line number—that 14 percent vacancy rate—and say “there’s no way we can lend into that market.” You have to convince them that, yes, the vacancy rate is high, but if you subtract out the big box retail,

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– Mike Kent

it is really much lower.

It’s going to be very interesting to watch lending in the coming years.

Duffy: If you don’t have substantial pre-leasing you aren’t going to build anything.

It’s going to come down to the credit of the developer and the amount of the preleasing.

And to the extent that you don’t have tenants already lined up and committed, and a developer that is willing to put a lot of equity on the line, the banks aren’t going to lend.

Knowledge Leader: Is that true across other sectors?

Mike Spears: For industrial, there were too many unknowns at the start of 2010. Companies were doing rationalization studies to see how they could squeeze money out of their supply chains. But many of them didn’t implement those plans because they wanted to preserve capital.

Now, companies are going to begin investing in their businesses and consolidating their real estate. There will be more mergers and acquisitions. We’ve seen some of that already. Also, in the second half of 2010 with the November elections, some of the unknowns surrounding taxes and health care costs were addressed, which will help the smaller companies.

A lot of these big boxes that were overbuilt are now getting leased up—I know a broker in our office is doing a 700,000-square-foot deal in the Inland Empire [near Los Angeles]. Six months ago companies had seven alternatives for space; now there is only one.

Mike Kent: We’ve seen the health ratio of the tenant continue to improve. At the beginning knowledge-leader.com

Colliers International’s Chief Economist Ross Moore shares his forecast for the coming year:

of 2010, we were still watching for who was going to survive and who wasn’t. At the beginning of the recession, we were renegotiating leases on a daily basis, including financially healthy tenants because their businesses had fallen off significantly from the peak of the upcycle.

Retailers were the hardest hit of all the segments, with the small mom-and-pop shops being the hardest hit within that segment— which is to be expected. But surprisingly, major retailers were also renegotiating their leases.

That has since subsided in the major metros and secondary markets. Businesses are starting to talk about expansions and/or backfilling some of their spaces that were under-utilized.

People have started to talk about expanding and rehiring. The majority of the expansion will happen in smaller, midsize or privately held companies. They’re already starting to hire back employees. Granted, they are hiring back one or two people at a time, but it’s a positive sign for the economy at large.

Scott Harper: In early 2010, at least from an office leasing perspective, owners were focused primarily on “how can I out-lease and outmanage the competition?” The top priorities were maintaining occupancy levels and cash flow, completing break-even deals, and resolving any major approaching debt issues. At the close of 2010, core institutional owners in good markets were back to positioning for value. They are only completing those transactions that give them a good economic return knowledge-leader.com

and will enhance the value of their buildings.

We’ve had some significant institutions pushing back or declining transactions because they anticipate better economics in 2011 or 2012.

Again, that’s in markets like San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston.

Some suburban markets or markets that were overbuilt in the recent up-cycle will still have some challenges in 2011 and possibly beyond.

David Burden: We’re seeing similar activity in office space here in Chicago. After the job crunch and financial crisis, vacancy rates spiked four or five points here. Corporations had hiring freezes and were focused on cost-cutting, negotiating buy-outs of leases and contraction options. They were doing short-term extensions to delay longer-term decisions and generally looking for any opportunity to increase spaceuse efficiencies. And there was little to no new construction going on at that time.

Like some of the other sectors have commented, in the fourth quarter of 2010—while corporations still wanted flexibility for contraction or termination options before making long-term commitments—the word “growth” came back into the conversation. I’m working on a couple of new organic growth projects for clients that are opening new call centers or expanding offices and filling internal vacancies for space they had. They’re looking to take advantage of the talent that’s in the job market.

It’s still flat right now but I think in another six to 12 months we’re going to start seeing some impact on vacancy rates and availabilities for

In general terms, the recovery that began earlier in 2010 will continue in 2011— the strength of that recovery, however, is debatable. As a rule the coastal markets will be stronger, with the usual suspects—New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle—leading the way.

Vacancy rates across the three main property types are all projected to be lower at the end of 2011. Helping to bring vacancies down is the dearth of development that will be hitting market this year, with many markets adding no new supply at all.

On the demand side, we see occupancies rising approximately 1 percent.

This is through the combined effects of a degree of latent demand, improved credit conditions, modest growth in the domestic economy and continued high rates of growth in the global economy.

Although prudence is still good advice throughout 2011, this year should mark the time when companies open a second office, take an additional floor, or take back sublease space that they now need.

Colliers international spring 2011

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those tenants that are larger users with bigger requirements in the major markets. There are a lot of large Class A vacancies in the West Loop of Chicago, for example, where there are 15 big users looking at 2013, 2014, 2015 occupancy dates. The challenge is going to be whether or not new spaces will be built because of the constraints on lending and the high preleasing requirements. So tenants who may want to move will probably end up renewing.

Barry: I also deal extensively in the distressed assets realm for the Asset Resolutions Team [with Michael Fay]. From the standpoint of that sector, we saw the market collapse in ’08 with everyone running for cover. Then in ’09, there was a “nuclear winter,” with little transaction activity because sellers believed that the market was too depressed and buyers were not ready to call “bottom.” Now, lenders who waited for a workout plan from their borrowers—which often failed to materialize—have assessed the damage, staffed up, and are on the offense taking back more property in foreclosure.

Bob Eaton: It’s an interesting scenario that I’m hearing from everyone. In 2009, hotels lost about 17 percent of their revenue. But what’s happened since the beginning of 2010 and the end of 2010 is we’ve really reached an inflection point of the major metrics that drives our industry: mainly rate and occupancy, or the combined nomenclature of RevPar. Going forward, our current forecast shows that if you own a typical hotel in the U.S., your revenue is going to increase about 36 percent between now and 2014, and your bottom line is going to increase 70 percent. Therein lies the opportunity. Primarily the major West Coast and coastal cities are getting all the action with the public REITS starting to buy.

The prices of hotels have been driven down.

Hotels are typically the first to feel a recession and oftentimes the last to come out, but when it does change, it goes in a solid direction. So very similar to the other real estate uses in terms of the timing.

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Kitty Wallace: In multi-family, we’ve actually been strong all year. In 2009, we saw rents and occupancies drop; and concessions had entered the market. At the end of 2010, across the board, with some exceptions in very hard-hit tertiary markets, concessions ceased, occupancies increased and the markets improved. In California, we are seeing rental increases in markets like San Diego, Northern California, and in pockets of L.A. And we are seeing a tremendous amount of opportunities for sales.

In 2010, I took a property to market on November 15 for a bank, which wanted it under contract before Thanksgiving. It was in the Inland Empire, which is somewhat of a tertiary market. I listed it at $11 million, and in eight calendar days, we had 21 offers. Nineteen were at-list or over, and we sold it at $650,000 above the listing price for a 5 cap on existing number.

And they gave us hard money up front to accept their offer. So we’re running back into some of the enthusiasm that we saw from ’05 to ’07.

Fay: In reference to investment sales, we’ve had a large upswing in activity. If you have a good core asset today, you are going to get it sold and you are going to have multiple offers. If you have a bank foreclosure listing—and I’m talking about buildings, not land sales—activity is great across all asset classes.

We have never seen more money in the marketplace than what we are seeing right now. As Kitty said, there is a lot of activity and everyone has cash. I’d say that 85 percent of our transactions in south Florida in 2010 were all cash; there’s very little financing. And around the country, we are seeing the gates starting to open.

Overall—in the top markets we are starting to see an uptick in the core assets. The REITS and a lot of the life insurance companies are changing balance sheet allocations, so they are looking to replace money. One of the largest sales we had down here in south Florida was a huge $150 million sale. They had some core assets only paying 4.5 percent and now they think they are going to 5.5 percent. So they are looking to boost whatever returns they can get. K L

Colliers International’s Chief Knowledge Officer Craig Robbins takes stock of the commercial real estate market today: Potential investors thought that there would be a high volume of deals because sellers would be in distress; however, very little of that has occurred. So all of the available capital is not going to find a home.

It is clear to most investors that the market has bottomed out, the cost of capital continues to be low, and there are not a large amount of decent properties on the market. These factors have created motivation for investors to accept lower returns on their investments.

Properties on the market that are stable or perceived to be stabilization opportunities are getting tremendous attention.

We have moved from a market in which investors thought they would benefit from financial engineering and a high volume of foreclosures, to a market that is focused on efficient operations, balance sheet repairs and multiple bids with lower expectations on returns. So investors who specialize in operating properties will benefit—this is where the “real” will be put back into real estate. knowledge-leader.com

A Citizen of the World In the era of globalization, Tony Blair— former British prime minister and current Middle East peace envoy—is uniting the world by finding a common voice.

By Christine Schultz

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knowledge-leader.com

G e n e X H w a n g / O r a n g e Ph o t o g r a p h y

Creating world peace:

knowledge-leader.com

for anyone else, the mission would seem like a pipe dream. But for someone with vision, relentless energy and an enterprising spirit— someone like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair—connecting people of all faiths by replacing conflict with cooperation is a very realistic objective.

In one of his many roles on the international stage, Blair serves as the Quartet Representative to the Middle East. The Office of the Quartet Representative is a joint diplomatic effort of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia. The office works with the Palestinian Authority, the government of Israel and the international community to help build the institutions and economy for a future Palestinian state.

Blair acknowledges that as globalization brings the world community closer than ever through organizations like the Office of the Quartet Representative, it has brought with it unprecedented opportunities—and challenges. He believes global problems need the energy and outreach of people worldwide, so in 2008 he founded the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which promotes harmony between the world’s different cultures by focusing on respect and understanding between the major religions, as well as atheists and agnostics. The foundation makes the case for the possibility of faith-without-dogma as a force for good in the modern world.

This past fall, Colliers International hosted a fundraising dinner for the foundation at San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel. Before a packed audience of 600-plus business leaders, Blair sat down with Emmy-winning broadcast journalist Charlie Rose and shared his thoughts on how citizen education can form a modern catalyst for peace. Knowledge Leader was there, and sat down with Blair prior to the dinner to learn more about the foundation’s efforts and programs.

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Grassroot efforts with global impact Traditionally, successful charities have been localized, creating meaningful personal interactions for participants within the communities in which they live. As efforts have moved onto the global stage, the level of influence and outreach has become potentially greater. But charitable organizations also run the risk of losing that emotional connection that was created by engaging in charitable experiences at the grassroots level.

To help counter this, one of the most important components of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s school program, Face to Faith, is a series of local interactions which help to build a unified message.

The Face to Faith program enables high school students ages 11 to 16 to become true global citizens by supporting peace-building, harmonious coexistence. Citizenship education, an academic subject similar to politics or sociology, aims to break down barriers and stereotypes, providing an expanded world view by using new technology to connect young people in 15 countries online and through video-conferencing. The program broadens horizons by engaging students of different cultures, religions and beliefs in discussions about global issues from varying perspectives. In the United States, schools in Utah, California, New York, Washington state and Georgia are already active participants.

The day of the fundraising dinner, more than

Corporate Social Responsibility Community and charitable efforts are at the core of Colliers International’s vision. The firm contributes to hundreds of charitable organizations by empowering their professionals to support causes that are important to them and their families, friends, clients and communities. In addition to contributing to local campaigns, Colliers USA Foundation provides financial and resource support to both national and international disaster relief efforts.

For more information on the Colliers USA Foundation, visit www.colliersusafoundation.org.

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70 teachers from 25 public and private schools around the Bay Area joined Blair at the launch of the Face to Faith program in San Francisco.

Participants engaged in a live video conference with two Face to Faith schools: Brighton High School—a public school in Utah—and Edmund Rice College in Melbourne, Australia.

After participating in the video conferences, Bay Area teachers and students had the opportunity to ask Blair in-depth questions about how Face to Faith fits into the school syllabus and what its potential impact might be at home and around the world.

“People today think globally. Walking in downtown San Francisco is a lot like London.

San Francisco residents represent most, if not all, of the world’s cultures. Our program provides an opportunity for participants from different religious faiths to learn from each other and understand each other. Our message may be global, but it’s based on local applications,” explains Blair.

Another of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s education projects is the Faith and Globalization Initiative, which includes representatives from leading universities on every continent. The initiative strives to develop a deeper understanding of the interrelationship between religion and the modern world, and is based around a university-taught course looking at the impact of, and relationship with, the 21st century. Findings and research are disseminated to the wider public and aim to help emerging leaders in these institutions understand the vital importance of the impact of faith in today’s world for the future.

Founding partners include Yale University in the United States and McGill University in Canada. Additional research institutions in the global network are: National University of Singapore (Republic of Singapore) knowledge-leader.com

G e n e X H w a n g / O r a n g e Ph o t o g r a p h y

(This page) At a fundraising dinner hosted by Colliers International for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke to a packed audience of 600-plus business executives. (Opposite page) Through technology like video conferencing, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation brings together people of all ages, and different nationalities and faiths.

c o u r t e s y o f t h e T o n y B l a i r f a i t h F o u n d at i o n

Durham University (United Kingdom) Tecnólogico de Monterrey (Mexico) University of Western Australia Peking University (China) Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone (Africa) Blair also hopes the personal interactions facilitated through the foundation’s social action project Faith Acts will remain with participants throughout their lives. The project is a practical multi-faith campaign to end global poverty. “It’s about creating action programs and working together to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, starting with eliminating deaths caused by malaria, for example,” he says. The program includes volunteer activity in more than 100 countries, with gold-standard youth interfaith programs in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and India.

“The foundation offers a whole new dimension to the way we look at social and cultural issues,” says Blair. “In today’s modern world, you would never find a leader of a multinational corporation, or organization or country that didn’t know about race issues and gender issues—or who wouldn’t be expected to be sensitive to those issues. Companies operating on a global scale need to understand cultural differences. It’s about religious literacy, regardless if you’re a person of faith or not.” knowledge-leader.com

He notes that people are always inspired by vision, but that vision must be translated into practical results.

“The single most important thing you learn when you make the transition from challenger to incumbent [in politics] is that inspiring through vision is short-lived—it’s really all about getting things done,” he explains. “It’s about creating effectiveness around the world.

Today the premium is on how you create effective governmental institutions. I think it’s less about the left-right battle. At this moment in time, the public is interested more in getting things done. Politics today are less about ideologies.”

Quoting former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, Blair adds, “you campaign in poetry and govern in prose.”

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation is a natural transition for Blair from his career in public office. The opportunity to pursue new passions is one that more and more former political leaders are taking advantage of because they are entering public office earlier in life than ever before. President Barack Obama was one of the youngest U.S. presidents to take office at the age of 47. Former president Bill Clinton was 46. In 2010, David Cameron, at the age of 43, became the youngest British Prime Minister in 200 years.

Blair himself was only 44 when he first took office as prime minister, serving from 1997 to

2007. Because politicians are elected to higher offices at a younger age, when they leave office, they have the drive and political clout to pursue other passions in the private sector. This was certainly true for Blair when he founded the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and accepted his position with the Office of the Quartet Representative. He also just recently published his memoirs, A Journey: My Political Life.

His international experience—both in the public and private sectors—gives him a unique perspective into how individuals and companies can play a vital role in charitable efforts around the world. And the first step, he says, is to start at home. “Looking at a firm like Colliers International, with locations in 61 countries, they can better understand the issues and leverage their worldwide presence for things that are of global impact,” he explains.

To learn more about the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, visit www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org. K L Colliers international spring 2011

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Concert

Properties President Brian McCauley doesn’t

spend much time touting his company’s achievements—whether they are in the arena of environmental stewardship, community involvement or innovative project development. But then, he doesn’t really need to. Other people keep doing it for him.

The real estate development company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, collects kudos like Wayne Gretsky collected Hart Trophies: in high volume. Concert is routinely recognized as one of the best companies to work for in Canada. The firm has also received numerous awards for design, including three Awards for Excellence from the Urban Development Institute last fall: “Best Mid-Rise Residential,” “Best of Vancouver Island” and “Best Outside the Box.” But unless you broach the subject of the numerous accolades, chances are Brian McCauley won’t mention them.

“We certainly take pride in our achievements,” he says simply.

Instead, the company focuses on the future more than it does on congratulating itself for its past. This sharp focus on what lies ahead helped Concert complete a huge industrial space purchase in the greater Toronto area last year, at a time when no one else was buying.

“It’s the first Class A industrial investment facility that has sold in more than 24 months in the greater Toronto area,” says John Stewart.

He, Bill Pitt and Jim McIntosh are members of the Colliers Industrial Investment Team. The three work with Concert and helped bring the opportunity to the developer’s attention.

In fact, the 50-acre property, which includes 1.12 million square feet of warehouse space, wasn’t even on the market. Pitt recalls the deal started over a casual lunch meeting.

“During lunch they said they had funds allocated for Class A industrial in the greater Toronto area,” Pitt recounts. “We pricechecked them on costs and cap rates and said: ‘We might have something. It’s a bestknowledge-leader.com

in-class asset but there are no guarantees because it’s off-market.’”

The property, which includes two buildings, was—and still is—fully occupied by the Canadian Tire Corporation on a long-term lease, but has the capacity for multi-tenant occupancy in the future. It’s located within easy access to the CN Rail's Brampton Intermodal Terminal, Highways 407 and 427, and the Toronto Pearson International Airport, making it a superb location.

“We’ve always used that building as the benchmark. It’s the best building that has sold over the past five years. It’s basically brand new, state-of-the-art, with extra land for trailer parking and it has an excellent tenant,” Pitt says. The property is so attractive, he says, that “we’ve had a number of buyers on our investment list calling us and asking why we didn’t bring them that deal.

Our answer is ‘Would you have bought it in July?’ And they always say ‘No.’” The fact that Concert said yes during a down economy “speaks to how forward-looking they are,” Stewart notes.

Once the purchase was complete, the market picked up significantly, says McIntosh.

“In fact, Concert’s purchase moved the market,” he adds.

McCauley says the purchase fit precisely the type of investment his company likes to make. “We want to acquire well-located, good quality assets that are distributionoriented and not manufacturing-oriented,” he explains. Given the population base in Ontario, McCauley is confident that the property’s industrial space will continue to be in demand—which is important, because

Concert isn’t the type of company that looks for quick, short-term investments.

“They’re long-term holders with a very longterm vision,” Pitt says.

That long-term vision is thanks, in part, to the company’s unusual ownership structure.

Concert Properties was formed in 1989 with a mandate to provide affordable housing options in Vancouver. It began as a partnership between 23 pension plans, 26 private investors, the City of Vancouver and the Province of British Columbia with a capitalization of $26 million. A little more than two decades later, its holdings are worth $1.6 billion.

The company originally built nearly 1,000 rental units on City of Vancouver-owned land and continues to manage those properties.

Today, Concert has more than 2,700 rental units completed and nearly 1,000 rental units under construction. In the early 1990s, all other investors were bought out and Concert became 100 percent union- and pension-owned.

In addition to developing rental housing, Concert also develops for-sale condominiums, as well as other income-producing properties such as office and industrial. Because almost all of the pension funds that own Concert rely on the company for their real estate holdings, diversifying was essential.

“After growing for the first five or six years, the importance of diversifying our portfolio was clear,” McCauley says. “We diversified from a geographic perspective and from an asset class perspective. We have our foundations and a core part of our business is residential, but it was important to balance that with commercial office and industrial, because each asset class has its own cycle.”

Colliers international spring 2011

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knowledge-leader.com

YMCA : E m a P e t e r

(Opposite page) Concert Properties' residential development Chelsea was awarded "Best Mid-Rise Residential" and "Best of Vancouver Island" by the Urban Development Institute. (This page) Concert Properties worked with the downtown Vancouver YMCA on its new state-of-the-art Robert Lee building. The project was awarded "Best Outside the Box" development by the Urban Land Development Institute.

In addition to the Greater Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto markets, Concert has several commercial and industrial holdings in Alberta.

However, McCauley doesn’t see the company developing much residential in that province. “Development is a local game,” he says.

“You really have to understand the particular nuances, understand the players on the design and construction side, and have a really good feel for the market conditions.”

The developer also believes it’s important to contribute to the communities where it does business. McCauley attributes the company’s strong community involvement to Concert’s broad ownership group. “We tell people we represent 200,000 British Columbians who have part of their pensions invested in us. One of our corporate objectives from day one has been to find ways to give back. It’s an important part of our DNA,” explains McCauley.

Concert frequently donates development work for nonprofit projects such as Cottage Hospice, a 10-bed facility owned and operated

by St. James Community Services Society.

Concert is also providing development and management services to the British Columbia Professional Firefighters Association for a building that will offer educational, residential, administrative and lab space services for burn survivors.

“We’ve also done a lot of work developing community spaces or facilities in masterplanned communities,” McCauley says. When Concert constructed its 28-acre Collingwood Village multi-family development in East Vancouver, for example, it included the knowledge-leader.com

Collingwood Neighbourhood House—a 25,000-square-foot building with a gymnasium and daycare center for up to 69 children. As part of that same project, Concert built and donated the first neighborhood crime prevention police station in North America.

More recently, Concert worked with the downtown Vancouver YMCA on its new stateof-the-art Robert Lee building. YMCA owned the land, but the 1941 building that it included didn’t serve YMCA's modern needs. “It was a real rabbit warren of old spaces,” McCauley says.

The nonprofit was looking for ways to fund a new facility so they transferred the land to Concert for a 42-floor residential tower. The property was rezoned to allow for the highdensity development and YMCA was able to generate revenue for a 95,000-square-foot facility with a gym, pool, daycare and community meeting spaces.

Because the preexisting building was deemed heritage, Concert preserved its exterior. “It’s an exceptional project,” McCauley notes. In fact, YMCA declared it a model for its future urban centers throughout North America.

Among the most impressive aspects of the new YMCA building is its environmental sustainability—something McCauley takes seriously. As a member of the Canadian Green Building Council, McCauley says he won’t “greenwash” Concert’s environmental record.

“While we’re very concerned and focused on [environmental sustainability], we will not overpromise and under-deliver,” he notes.

It helps that Concert develops its properties to hold onto for the long-term. “We need to

be pushing for the highest and best and most practical levels of sustainability. We need to be building the best buildings we can afford to,” explains McCauley.

Concert also values the environment it provides for its employees. Named among the best places to work by BCBusiness and Canadian Business magazines, Concert also won YWCA’s Innovative Workplace Award in 2009. The award is presented to “a business or organization that has created a respectful workplace that supports the wellness and diverse needs of its employees, and demonstrates excellence in encouraging individuals to balance the demands and rewards of career, family, community and personal growth.”

McCauley notes that people enjoy working for Concert because of the talented pool of employees they get to work with. “At the end of the day, it’s looking forward to coming to work in a collegial, collaborative environment,” he says.

“We take a great deal of pride in the fact that we treat our contractors and our associates with respect. We treat people fairly and [our employees] are happy to be here because we create an atmosphere that allows people to grow.”

It should come as no surprise, then, that the company’s tagline “Concert: A developer with a Difference” is more than just lip service.

McCauley explains that he and his management team continually ask themselves what that tagline truly means. “It’s not just the right thing to do; it’s good business to be involved in worthwhile community activities and build sustainable buildings. Frankly, it’s about being a better citizen.” K L Colliers international spring 2011

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Behind the Scenes

(Above) The Sorbara Group converted this property into the 110-suite, 240,000-square-foot Brewery Lofts at 90 Sumach Street. (Right) Edward Sorbara, principal of The Sorbara Group.

As principal of The Sorbara Group—a

real estate development company in the greater Toronto area—Edward Sorbara oversees a diverse portfolio that includes industrial, office, multifamily and hundreds of acres of land in various stages of development. He officially began his career in 1967 after completing his master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago. But, truthfully, a career in real estate development is one he was preparing for long before graduation.

A pioneering force in the industry, The Sorbara Group traces its beginnings back to 1942 when Sorbara’s father, Sam Sorbara, started an insurance and real estate brokerage firm. Sam Sorbara was one of the first post-war land syndicators and believed in land investment. “My father would find a property of interest and assemble a group of friends and associates to buy it,” recounts Sorbara.

In the early days, the company set out to meet the growing demand for industrial buildings in Scarborough (located in East Toronto), but has grown to include, as Sorbara describes it, “a little bit of everything.”

“The strategy behind our business is the ‘science of stumbling through.’ The biggest gamblers are often the biggest winners. Ten years ago, you were crazy if you bought land at prices the world considered ‘stupid.’ In this business, sometimes you’re better off to roll the dice. Today’s biggest winners are some of yesterday’s biggest risktakers,” he explains.

Sorbara says that risk-taking is in the company’s DNA. “It’s what we do; we take risks to see reward, but we think we know what we’re doing. We focus in and determine how we can capitalize on and leverage our strengths and talents. We can take risk because we can allocate a portion of our cash knowledge-leader.com

Risky Business

For The Sorbara Group, real estate continues to be a gamble that pays off. By Chrystal LeBlanc

flows to a project without risking our core assets.”

He says one success story to date is a landmark project that transformed the Dominion Brewery building into residential lofts. In the 1980s, The Sorbara Group purchased the building, which at the time was occupied by a prop warehouse for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

CBC vacated the building and The Sorbara Group was left with an industrial warehouse space with no potential tenant interest. So Sorbara’s team converted the property into the 110-suite, 240,000-square-foot Brewery Lofts at 90 Sumach Street, which is now widely considered to be the best loft project in Toronto. “I still walk into the building today and say, ‘Wow,’” says Sorbara.

Today, The Sorbara Group invests heavily in condominium development and is currently building its fourth project, with three more on the proverbial drawing board. “There is a great deal of money chasing real estate investment, and condominiums seem a smart choice,” he explains.

“We build condos for the investor. In the past, we were wrongly focused on the end users: owner-occupied or renting residents. I wouldn’t be surprised to see 90 percent of our condos purchased by investors. Even with high prices, the mentality is that in the future it will be worth more than what you paid for it today.”

On the flip side of the real estate coin, Sorbara says for the commercial real estate market in the Greater Toronto area, not all properties are created equal.

“Not surprisingly, the industrial rental market is in a difficult spot right now. I’m seeing 1990 rental rates. Industrial rental space is dependent to a significant degree on U.S. demand and if the U.S. isn’t demanding our products, then we don’t have the demand for industrial facilities,” he explains.

He notes that because of shrinking demand, tenants now have additional negotiating power in the market and are insisting on resourceefficient features. These sustainable elements are now becoming standard, much like other standard features, which today are taken for granted. “When I first started in the industry, light fixtures were an extra,” recalls Sorbara.

“Over time, if I didn’t offer them, the next building would. Eventually, light fixtures became the standard. This same pressure today forces a green movement to be competitive.

In negotiations, once a ‘carrot’ is offered by one developer, others must step up or quit the game.”

Despite the challenges the industry is facing today, he predicts real estate will continue to be a smart investment—although how smart will depend on the type of property.

“With continued population growth, we’ll experience continued demand from people, whether someone is demanding real estate as a product to use—such as a condominium renter—or a financial opportunity—such as an investor. The market will continue to support the growth and the value of real estate but timing may be stretched and location and price may be more critical in negotiations. Office space will be constrained by technology: with technology, we do more with less space but the 2010 trend seemed to go against this. Industrial will continue to be affected by the demand from the U.S. economy,” he predicts.

Regardless, Sorbara says, “Real estate will always be my passion. I don’t see myself retiring. Even if I wasn’t working, I couldn’t drive by a beautiful corner in downtown Toronto without asking myself, ‘What could be done here?’ Real estate has afforded me everything in my life.” K L Colliers international spring 2011

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Behind the Scenes

That’s the Ticket One of Silicon Valley’s hottest tech companies is coming to an event near you. By Aaron Finkelstein Eventbrite co-founder and President Julia Hartz.

A husband and wife power couple—one a serial entrepreneur and Silicon Valley investor, the other a “reformed” television executive with F/X Networks—leave their respective positions, bootstrap a technology startup, and work for free; all while living on ramen noodles. Before you know it, they’ve grown from three to 100 employees, attracted nearly $30 million in venture capital, and transformed a market dominated by established giants.

It may sound like a pitch for a television sitcom, but for Julia Hartz—the aforementioned former TV executive—it’s all unscripted reality. Once working on ground-breaking shows like Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck and The Shield, Hartz co-founded San Francisco-based Eventbrite with her husband Kevin. The company equips event organizers with a self-service platform of free tools to promote and sell tickets to events.

Eventbrite users can build customized event websites, manage ticket sales, and promote their events in completely new ways. “Our mission from the start was to empower event organizers,” explains Hartz, “so we also offer charts and analytics that show you everything you need to make decisions about how to market your event.”

In 2006, they identified a market opportunity in smaller event ticketing that was being ignored by the larger players such as Ticketmaster—an opportunity that could be worth tens of billions of dollars. “Currently, we handle anything from a five-person yoga workshop to political rallies of 75,000,” she says.

Eventbrite operates on a transactional business model, charging 2.5 percent of ticket price plus 99 cents per ticket sold; there is no charge for ticketing a free event. The company has sold more than 21 million tickets to date, and handled nearly $207 million in ticket purchases in 2010 32

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alone. That’s twice their gross volume in 2009—a number they plan to double again in 2011.

And the company has done more than simply democratize event ticketing. Through pioneering integration with social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Eventbrite is fundamentally changing the way people discover events.

Julia left her career as a creative executive with F/X Networks because the work began to feel stultifying. “The problem was the lack of innovation in anything but the content. In terms of distribution, online integration and advertising, we were hearkening back to the 1950s,” she explains. Through Kevin’s work on Xoom, his second startup, Julia was able to observe the innovation and new ideas that such ventures make possible.

Joined by co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Renaud Visage, the couple began two years of intensive product development. “It was a tremendous experience; I love to self-teach, and I learned so much in those first two years. I discovered that I was really in my element,” she says. By 2008, the three principals had built the core product Eventbrite offers today and were already turning a profit. They sought outside investment in 2009, and have grown explosively ever since.

By remaining committed to their core business, Eventbrite has avoided one of the common pitfalls of the startup. “We’ve had plenty of opportunities to get distracted in ancillary businesses, but we’ve been steadfast about staying focused on ticketing. We are who we are from the beginning of time,” says Hartz.

Growth has presented management challenges for Hartz. Specifically: how do you maintain your company’s identity, vision and culture while tripling your headcount in a year? And

where do you put everyone?

“We’ve tended to underestimate the amount of space we’ve needed,” she says. The company has moved at least once a year as operations have expanded, often sharing space with “friend” companies such as Zynga, TokBox and Yammer—three companies that focus on online gaming, video conferencing and social networking, respectively. Hartz feels the process has been productive, however. “I think we’ve done the right thing; it’s scary to over-commit because you don’t want to end up in the landlord business. And we learn more about what we want in our environment as we go into new spaces.”

In preparation for doubling their headcount this year, Eventbrite recently signed a lease on 27,000 square feet of space two blocks from their current headquarters in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood.

Of even greater importance to Hartz is maintaining her company’s unique personality.

“I made it my mission this past year to make sure our growth didn’t supersede our bar of excellence in our service and our culture.” She’s done this by seeking employees who are a cultural fit rather than possess a checklist of qualifications. “You don’t have to fit into a box, you just need the willingness to be open, social and humble.” Half her hires are referred by Eventbrite employees, which helps ensure that everyone subscribes to the core values of the company.

More importantly, Hartz believes the vitality of her company lies in the freedom of every team member to define the culture. “You have to make everyone feel like they own it, and that they can do whatever they think is cool and would make the environment more fun. That’s how we’ve built a sustainable culture, one we feel protective of.” K L knowledge-leader.com

Investment/Leasing Opportunities A SELECTION OF COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL AVAILABLE PROPERTIES FOR Sale

West Ballenas Island Gulf Islands, British Columbia

• Private island • 100 acres in size • 20 minutes from Vancouver by floatplane • Only $20,000 per acre • Undeveloped and almost entirely in its natural state • Features a federally owned, unmanned weather station and lighthouse

Medallion Business Centre 1925 – 18th Street NE Calgary, Alberta

Mark Lester +1 604 661 0890 mark.lester@colliers.com Alan Johnson +1 604 661 0842 alan.johnson@colliers.com

• Close proximity to downtown and Calgary International Airport • Excellent building exposure from Deerfoot Trail – over 187,000 vehicles per day • Building features a rooftop patio with spectacular mountain views • Full-service fitness facility and daycare on-site • Excellent parking ratio

www.UniqueProperties.ca FOR sale

Industrial Building 1220 Marie-Victorin Longueuil, Québec

• Approximately 400,000 SF under roof • Approximately 1,000,000 SF of land • Being re-zoned commercial • Facing / fronting on Marie-Victorin (Highway 132) in Longueuil, Québec • Asking $6,750,000

Modern Distribution Centre

Kevin Watson +1 403 571 8765 kevin.watson@colliers.com Ashley Cabral +1 403 215 7260 ashley.cabral@colliers.com FOR Lease

6780 CREDITVIEW DRIVE Mississauga, Ontario

Arnold Fox arnold.fox@colliers.com Norman S. Laff norm.laff@colliers.com Justin Klumak justin.klumak@colliers.com

• Modern 324,600 SF warehousing and distribution facility (divisible to a minimum of 100,000 SF ) • 800 linear feet of direct 401 Highway exposure • Rail serviced • Direct access to Highways 401, 407, 403; 10 km from Pearson International Airport

+1 514 866-1900

Hanson Square

FOR Lease

FOR Lease

901 – 917 17th Avenue SW Calgary, Alberta

Ashley Burke +1 416 620 2812 ashley.burke@colliers.com FOR sale

Hys Centre – Medical Arts Facility 11010 101 Street Edmonton, Alberta

• 4-storey mixed use retail/office development on Calgary’s busiest pedestrian street • 18,245 SF main floor retail • Second floor anchored by Best Buy • 154 onsite underground parking stalls • Summer 2012 opening

Rob Walker +1 403 298 0422 rob.walker@colliers.com Isaac Beall +1 403 571 8827 isaac.beall@colliers.com Krystyn Gatto +1 403 298 0412 krystyn.gatto@colliers.com

• 146,981 SF premier medical arts complex connected to one of Alberta’s leading surgical hospitals • Captive tenancy with strong synergies and high retention rate • Upside in contractual rent escalations and below-market lease rates • 96% commercial occupancy • Substantial underground and surface parking • Clear title

Ken Williamson, CFA +1 780 969 2999 ken.williamson@colliers.com Rick Argue +1 780 969 2997 rick.argue@colliers.com Mark Swaenepoel +1 780 969 3037 mark.swaenepoel@colliers.com

Investment/Leasing Opportunities A SELECTION OF COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL AVAILABLE PROPERTIES FOR Lease

King West Place 901 King Street West Toronto, Ontario

FOR Sale

Campbell Heights North Business Park 192nd Street & 32nd Avenue Surrey, British Columbia

• 105,719 SF contiguous space • Close to the downtown core without downtown overhead • Ample underground parking: 1 permit/625 SF leased space • Access to TTC and all amenities • Large efficient floor plates of 30,000 and 37,000 SF

Tim Bristow +1 416 643 3408 tim.bristow@colliers.com Daniel Holmes +1 416 643 3463 daniel.holmes@colliers.com

• Metro Vancouver’s best opportunity to purchase land and custom build • Vacant industrial lots available • Phase I: lots from 1.5 to 5 acres • Serviced, ready to build • Excellent location, close to amenities and transportation routes

Randy Heed +1 604 661 0831 randy.heed@colliers.com

www.kingwestplace.com FOR Lease

Quartier Limoges Limoges Road and Highway 417 Limoges, Ontario

• 325,000+ SF of retail space (in phases) • Next to Canada’s largest water park, visited by 350,000 people in 2010 • Superior visibility from Highway 417 • Tourist destination: 90 minutes from Montreal and 20 minutes from Ottawa • Opportunity for food anchor, department stores and outlet centre

Chris Morrison +1 604 661 0875 chris.morrison@colliers.com

FOR Sale

LM Distribution Net Leased Investment 7400 Scott Hamilton Drive Little Rock, Arkansas

Pierre Benoit, Broker +1 613 683 2232 pierre.benoit@colliers.com Justin Levine, Sales Representative +1 613 683 2225 justin.levine@colliers.com

• Class A industrial • Leased through August 15, 2015 by international manufacturer of wind turbine blades • 212,000 SF • 27 foot clear height • 15,000 SF office • Constructed 1990 • Fully heated, cooled, sprinkled; energy management system • $5,800,000

Kevin Huchingson, CCIM, SIOR kevin.huchingson@colliers.com Mark Bentley, SIOR mark.bentley@colliers.com +1 501 372 6161

FOR SALE

500 Terry Francois Boulevard

South of Market’s Premier Listing

San Francisco, California

875 Howard Street San Francisco, California

• Premier headquarters building offering a new, never occupied, stateof-the-art facility in the epicenter of San Francisco’s life sciences and technology sector community • LEED certified waterfront building • 291,000 net rentable square feet • 286 parking spaces

Frank Wheeler frank.wheeler@colliers.com Tim Maas tim.maas@colliers.com Tony Crossley tony.crossley@colliers.com +1 415 788 3100

• New high-end creative office space • Collaborative open-plan layout • Large efficient 33,000 SF floors • High exposed concrete ceilings • Great neighborhood amenities • On-site valet parking • Men’s & women’s shower rooms • Bike storage

FOR Lease

Mike McCarthy mike.mccarthy@colliers.com Mike Monroe mike.monroe@colliers.com +1 415 788 3100

Investment/Leasing Opportunities A SELECTION OF COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL AVAILABLE PROPERTIES FOR Lease

Hughes Center, Nevada’s Business District

Class A Office Tower in Downtown St. Louis

Tom Stilley tom.stilley@colliers.com Lizz Stilley lizz.stilley@colliers.com Michael Koontz michael.koontz@colliers.com +1 702 735 5700 www.hughescenter.com FOR Lease

Golden Springs Business Center Building G

• 4 miles from Georgia Ports Authority main gate • 38,400 – 122,960 SF available • LEED certified • 32' clear height • 19 dock doors, 1 drive in, 14 trailer parks • Current tenants include Dole, Inteco Group, and the Great American Hanger Company • 96+ car parks

Large Operations Building

David Sink, SIOR +1 912 233 7111 x 102 david.sink@colliers.com www.colliers.com/savannah FOR Lease

19845 US 31 North Westfield, Indiana (Indianapolis Suburb)

1010 Market Street St. Louis, Missouri • 20-story Class A office tower in downtown St. Louis • 150,000 SF available • Building signage opportunity • Dramatic views • 6 corner officer per floor • Great law firm location • Fitness center, restaurant, conference center

LogistiPort Savannah 100 Clyde Alexander Lane Pooler, Georgia

3753-3993 Howard Hughes Parkway Las Vegas, Nevada • 68 acre mixed use, master planned central business district including 1.4 million SF of true Class A office space • Central location and proximity to the LV strip, airport and Convention Centers • Amenities include FedEx, Starbucks, countless hotel, entertainment, shopping and dining

FOR Lease

Tony Kennedy +1 314 241 1175 tony.kennedy@colliers.com FOR Lease

• 300,000 total SF (2 floors) • Office complex on a 55.78 acre site in Indianapolis suburb “Crossroads of America.”

• Very efficient - maximize space usage • Parking for 1,267 vehicles expandable • Property accessible to work forces from surrounding communities

520 Broad Street

R.J. Rudolph, SIOR +1 317 663 6550 rj.rudolph@colliers.com Tom Osborne, SIOR +1 317 663 6543 tom.osborne@colliers.com FOR sale & lease

Newark, New Jersey

13335 Orden Drive Santa Fe Springs, California • Possible expansion to 286,985 SF • Carmenita road frontage • ±5,000 SF of office space • 32' minimum ceiling clearance • ESFR sprinkler system • 34 - 9'x10' dock-high loading doors • 1 - 12'x14' grade-level door via ramp • 146' concrete truck yard • Metal halide interior lighting • 800 amps, 277/480 volts, threephase power, expandable

Clyde Stauff +1 949 724 5543 clyde.stauff@colliers.com Steve Calhoun +1 323 278 3111 steve.calhoun@colliers.com

• 468,000 SF • Prime location across from new light rail • On-site management • Full-service cafeteria • On-site conference center, fitness center, basketball court, pool • Divisible to +/- 50,000 SF • Ample on-site parking

Bryn Cinque +1 973 299 3016 bryn.cinque@colliers.com Jim Bailey +1 973 299 3013 james.bailey@colliers.com

personal biz

En h a n cin g t h e e x ecu tiv e lifest y l e

You’ve Got Mail

In 2011, resolve to lower stress and increase productivity by managing your inbox.

By cindy whiston, mcghee productivity solutions There is little doubt that regardless of

what 2011 holds, the residual effects—professionally and personally—of the recession will continue to be felt. That is particularly true for those employees who have had to take on additional responsibilities to stay afloat financially.

According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey: • 47 percent of workers have taken on more responsibility because of layoffs.

• 37 percent said they are handling the work of two people.

• 30 percent said they feel burned out.

they may not be working for you and/or your team, and replace those approaches with behaviors to manage e-mail more effectively. In short: You must set boundaries.

Here are some ideas: •

• Experts say stress weighing on the minds of employees can affect productivity, motivation and creativity, leading to increased absenteeism and turnover. Causes of stress, according to the American Psychological Association, include job uncertainty, cost-cutting, a relentless demand for higher productivity and the proliferation of communications tools—e-mail, cell phones, Blackberries—that blur the boundaries between work and home. And while not all of these stressors are within our control, one seemingly innocuous one is: your e-mail inbox.

•

•

Combating e-mail overload E-mail has evolved from an efficient communication tool to become an often oppressive form of technology and a high cause of anxiety.

According to the research and advisory firm Basex Inc., the cost of information overload to the U.S. economy is more than $900 billion annually in lost productivity and up to 28 percent of workers’ time. Many companies are taking notice of the impact on productivity and considering ways to prevent it.

While it would appear on the surface that e-mail in general is the problem, it actually may be your approach to it that is flawed, such as compulsively checking for new messages or retaining thousands of e-mail messages in your inbox. To get e-mail under control, you must first re-examine these approaches, recognize 36

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•

Reduce e-mail to a single account. Eliminate all unnecessary e-mail accounts. If your firm prohibits combining personal and business e-mail, consolidate personal accounts into a single view by using mail forwarding or POP settings.

Manage e-mail interruptions. Turn off all e-mail notifications, both visual and audio, as these distractions can cause you to lose focus.

Limit e-mail processing to once or twice a day. Unless your role is designed to support short turn-around times, limit the number of times you process your e-mail.

You can still monitor your e-mail during the day, but limit the time that you’re actually responding to messages.

Manage e-mail response times. Establish your preferred e-mail response time and let others know what to expect. A 24-hour response time is usually acceptable. Always respond to e-mails within the pre-determined response time, even if it’s only to let the sender know you’ll be delayed in properly responding to his or her request.

Establish an e-mail protocol. E-mail is most effective when team members have clear guidelines, e.g., when to copy others on communiqués, how to write concise e-mails, and which situations are best handled by other forms of communication, such as a good, old-fashioned phone call.

McGhee Productivity Solutions (MPS)—a productivity consulting firm headquartered in Denver—has developed a solution they call the

PASS E-Mail Model, which helps professionals write more effective e-mails. Even if you’re the only one who adopts this model, you can still reduce the volume of daily e-mail messages in your inbox because every message you send that’s clear and actionable means fewer messages asking for clarification in return.

The PASS Model consists of four simple questions: P - What’s the Purpose of your communication and does it relate to one of your meaningful objectives? If it doesn’t, then why are you spending time on it?

A - What Action is involved and does it have a due date? Be clear about what you want the recipient to do and be explicit on deadlines.

S - What Supporting documentation do you want to include so that the requested action can be completed? Identifying the supporting information up front will reduce the likelihood of your message coming back to you with questions.

S - Have you effectively summarized your communication in the Subject line? Include the requested action and due dates.

By taking time to apply these suggestions, you can reduce the stress and time associated with one of the most powerful workplace communication vehicles: e-mail. K L knowledge-leader.com

follow the leader

Pro fil e in l e a d ership

Perfect Vision

As you emerge from the recession, it’s important to reconnect with your original passion. By Stewart Gall Economic downturns typically force a company’s management team to focus on the “micro”—immediate concerns, such as budgets, staffing, refinancing and cost-cutting. And that’s completely understandable. But as we continue to rebuild from this most recent downturn, your business must also focus on the big picture—the “macro.” Otherwise, there is a very real danger of becoming disconnected from your business’s core vision or tainting it with lingering fears from the recession. As a result, when the next economic boom comes, you won’t be fully prepared to reap the benefits.

So what can you do to make sure you are as prepared to meet a good economy as you were to face a challenging one?

Reconnect with your passion Do you remember why you started the business?

The easiest way to connect with your original vision is to rediscover your business history through a “campfire” conversation. Ask yourself, “What was I trying to achieve when I founded my company?”

As you do this exercise, keep things in perspective. The danger of trying to reconnect with your vision straight out of a recession is that you risk bringing any remaining resentments or anxieties with you into the future. As a result, the re-set vision will be too small; it won’t fully accommodate company traditions, culture or values because it’s still connected to past angst and anger. It won’t be fully connected to your original business intent, so you’ll risk losing the passion that was there when you built your company.

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Document your history Document your company’s journey, moment by moment. But don’t begin on the date that your doors—figuratively or otherwise—opened for business. Return to the time when the idea of your business first began percolating. In many cases, people spend years planning their businesses before launching them. Rarely are businesses instantaneous start-ups. The initial entrepreneurial incentive may have been frustration in your previous position; or perhaps you saw a need that wasn’t being met in the market. Recognizing your early history as part of the total business journey is vital.

A campfire conversation doesn’t need a facilitator or coach; it’s something you and/or your team can easily do yourselves. Even if you aren’t a business owner, reconnecting with why you initially chose your career is a smart strategy. Here are some questions to get started: • How did this business/my career start?

• Why did we launch originally? (Or conversely, why did I choose this field of work?) For commercial gain? Or was there a cultural aim as well?

• What were we trying to achieve when we first started out?

• What were we hoping to do in the long term?

Campfire conversations can result in some surprising revelations. One financial adviser noted on our first meeting that he had been in business for seven years and told me, “Ever since I opened the doors, I’ve been earning about $350,000 a year.”

When asked what he was looking to accomplish

The danger of trying to reconnect with your vision straight out of

a recession is that you risk bringing any remaining resentments or anxieties with you into the future.

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in the years to come, he said he’d recently been watching television with his family when he had a sudden realization. He told me: “I looked at my two older children, ages six and seven, and then to the new baby in my wife’s arms. I was looking backwards and forwards between the youngest and the eldest, and had a sudden, blinding flash. I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know my kids.’”

He realized he’d spent the past seven years working hard to build his business, and while he was able to earn a healthy income, the cost had been missing out on time with his children.

There is an old saying: No one ever said on his or her deathbed, “I wish I’d spent more time at work.” It’s advice the financial advisor heeded. His directive to us? “I don’t need to earn more money.

Just make sure I spend as much time as possible with my children.”

Gaining perspective Revisiting our own and our companies’ histories allows us to reexamine why we started our businesses or started out in our career. Rarely are our motivations solely financial.

When I asked the financial advisor if he was still able to deliver the type of personal service he first imagined he would as a sole entrepreneur, he admitted he wasn’t. I explained that he needed to free up time in his office which would then allow more one-on-one time with his clients—one of the reasons he’d started his business. I helped him to build a back-office team, which allowed him to spend more face time with clients. By the end of the year, he had gone from working six-plus days a week and earning $350,000 a year to working four days a week and still earning an annual income of $350,000. But now he had one more thing to look forward to: more time with his family.

Gather your team ‘round the campfire Start the vision conversation by first examining your business history for perspective. This will help you to move forward without the emotional baggage that naturally comes from surviving challenging economic times. Return to the foundation stone you first laid when you began your company or career. Ask yourself: What is written there? It’s quite likely that your answer will be a welcome reminder of the passion that helped you to become the success you are today and will continue to be into the future. K L Colliers international spring 2011

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csr

co rp o r at e s o ci a l resp o nsibilit y

Investing in Community build your own nest egg while contributing to the growth of an impoverished community or developing country. By Jessica c. Trupin, mpa

Global Partnerships’ Social Investment Fund 2010 provides loan capital to microfinance institutions that serve people living in poverty in Latin America.

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knowledge leader Spring 2011

histories and the potential for enormous human impact: Microcredit. Mission-related investing.

Socially responsible investing (SRI). Microfinance institution (MFI).

Investment programs such as these have been around for centuries, with variations in virtually every culture: from the Irish Loan Fund begun in the 1700s

by Jonathan Swift, to Cambodia’s rotating savings and credit associations called tontines to West Africa’s likelemba—a solidarity savings program through which members contribute to a savings “pot” which is then donated to one of the members.

In the 1970s, experiments in microcredit included small loans made primarily to women under the presumption that women were more likely to make loan payments. Those loans required extraordinarily high repayment rates—rates which bested the formal financial sectors in the same countries. International development agencies, governments and bankers took notice and in the mid-1990s, microcredit started to give way to microfinance, the provision of other financial services beyond simply credit to poor communities. As these organizations evolve, more of them are now also offering health care screenings, immunizations, business training and other services.

In 2010, the next evolution of microcredit was introduced when Seattle-based nonprofit Global Partnerships created the Social Investment Fund 2010, a $20-million debt fund designed to provide loan capital to MFIs that serve people living in poverty in Latin America. In addition to supporting the work of economic and social development, the fund—the organization’s fourth—is designed to provide a sustainable return to investors. What sets this fund apart is not just its strategy—to anchor and promote the growth of high-performing, socially focused MFIs that help impoverished people create livelihoods and improve their lives—but also its investors. Investors in Global Partnerships’ funds— including development banks, foundations, academic institutions, faith-based nonprofits and accredited individual investors—share a commitment to earning a double bottom-line return: financial return and social return. knowledge-leader.com

Ch r i s M e g a r g e e / Gl o b a l P a r t n e r sh i p s

They are imposing -sounding terms with long

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Instead of just asking what their

money can do for them, younger investors are asking what their money can do for others.

The Social Investment Fund 2010 is a prime example of impact investments. Impact investments are defined by Hope Consulting (a San Francisco-based strategy consulting firm focused on the social sector) as “investments that have an active social and/or environmental objective in addition to a financial objective.”

Hope Consulting’s Money for Good initiative found that there’s a $120 billion market opportunity for impact investments, and much of that growth is coming from younger investors who have grown up with superior access to information, have had exposure to divestment campaigns on college campuses, and, in some cases, acquired sudden wealth from the technology boom of the late 90s. Instead of just asking what their money can do for them, younger investors are asking what their money can do for others.

But why would anyone choose to invest in a fund that promises, at the outset, not to maximize profits?

According to Michael Brown, Vice President of Community Leadership at the Seattle Foundation, the greater goal is impact. “We want our investment back, of course, and to see our return maximized. But a maximized return doesn’t necessarily need to be financial. Foundations manage significant assets and though we use those assets to support our grant-making, more foundations and donors are recognizing that there are other ways to utilize their assets to achieve greater impact.”

Global Partnerships has spent the past decade and a half focused on expanding opportunities for individuals living in poverty through partnerships with high-performing, socially focused, microfinance institutions. Their 24 partners—local, on-the-ground nonprofits in impoverished communities—serve close to 850,000 borrowers throughout seven countries in Latin America. Its focus on both financial and social impact makes its funds an appealing choice for investors who want to realize investment return and work for the betterment of society.

By seeking MFIs that provide their clients with

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not just financial services, but also social services such as health care and financial education, Global Partnerships is able to ensure a healthy flow of capital into those communities, as well as a sustainable flow of profits to their investors.

SRIs use three basic investment strategies: negative screening, shareholder advocacy and community investment or microfinance. Negative screening is when, for example, an investor chooses to avoid any investment in tobacco companies.

The second method, shareholder advocacy, is more powerful, according to Johann Klaassen, Ph.D., Vice President of Managed Account Solutions at First Affirmative Financial Network, a registered investment advisory firm based in Colorado Springs, Colo., that provides consulting and investment management services nationwide. Klaassen is an expert on socially responsible investing and explains that, with shareholder advocacy: “We can use our ownership stake to take the issues that matter most to us before corporate leadership in private meetings, or before the world in proxy filings. Shareholder advocates have made great strides in recent years, and have caused many corporations to make fundamental changes in the way they do business—changes for the better.” As for the third strategy—community investment—Klaassen says that is the most powerful of all three, and “reaches directly to where people live.”

This tactic has certainly paid dividends in the case of Lucia Tarqui, a Bolivian microentrepreneur who is one of Global Partnerships’ success stories. The microloans and other support Lucia received from Global Partnerships’ nonprofit partner Pro Mujer was enough to allow her to build her piggybank-making business, which allowed her to buy a car, which allowed her to expand her business and keep her four young daughters in school. Multiply this story by hundreds of thousands, add in a repayment rate of 98 percent and you begin to see the tremendous human impact of Global Partnerships’ capital. K L

Bolivian Lucia Tarqui (top) received microloans which allowed her to build her piggybank-making business and keep her daughters in school.

Colliers international spring 2011

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In Focus

Fro m t h e Presid en t & CEO

The Ties that Bind

Creating common bonds through community service. by doug frye recessions in modern times, it’s easy for businesses to focus solely on growing revenue and executing transactions. In fact, while our competitors were forced to reorganize or reduce services, Colliers International wrapped up 2010 with a stronger brand and bottom line.

This is because in nearly 500 communities where our professionals live and work, we capitalize on every opportunity to contribute our talents and resources to accelerating success.

But one of the traits that defines Colliers is our commitment to accelerate success for everyone—not only for our clients, but also our local and global communities. We contribute to the causes that personally inspire us, such as health, education, the environment, peace, and prosperity for those less fortunate.

A passion for supporting our communities also unites us. We came together with clients and colleagues last November in San Francisco at a fundraising dinner to raise $500,000 for The Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Our local teams also regularly host food, toy and clothing drives, including an award-winning effort in Phoenix.

These events didn’t start with a corporate decree. It’s exciting when our 15,000 professionals bring their spirit of enterprise—the same creative, ingenious approach they apply to solving our clients’ problems—to tackling the challenges that face our communities.

That’s why we empower our people to choose the causes they care about and engage their

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colleagues and clients in reaching a goal.

The results are exceptional. Not only does it allow Colliers to connect with people beyond real estate owners, tenants and investors, it also reinforces our culture. This summer, we watched Colliers’ rising stars challenge each other in sports competitions to win a pot of money—which the winners promptly donated to a children’s charity. I’ve also seen a staff member so touched by a colleague’s terminal illness that she not only brought the office together for a fundraising gala, but she later joined that charity as its director of development.

It reminds me of a quote from Millard Fuller, the late founder of Habitat for Humanity International, who ceaselessly advocated asking others to share in your purpose. “I’ve tried asking, and I’ve tried not asking…and asking works better,” he was known to say. I see colleagues and clients form stronger bonds when one has the courage to ask for help in supporting a cause and the other steps up with whatever they can offer.

For example, when China and Indonesia were rocked by earthquakes, our teams raised more than $100,000 to rebuild a school and health facility for children. In Canada, we help low-income families earn and own simple, decent homes through building projects sponsored by Habitat for Humanity. And in Latin America, we helped disadvantaged families get their children’s education off to a good start by contributing time and money to nonprofit organizations such as Jardín de Niños (Garden of the Children) Corinca.

One of the traits that defines Colliers is our commitment to accelerate success for everyone—not only for our clients, but also our local and global communities.

knowledge leader Spring 2011

Doug Frye is the global president and chief executive officer for Colliers International.

On the cycling front, a team from Colliers International in Australia helps the Starlight Foundation and Tour de Kids raise funds to improve the lives of seriously ill children and their families by participating in a 700-mile ride from Melbourne to Sydney, Australia. And in Europe, cyclists from Colliers raise funds for Cancer Research UK and the North West Children’s Support Group by riding 170 miles from Bratislava to Budapest.

While this small sampling is a good representation of our overall fundraising efforts, our community involvement doesn’t always involve a financial target.

We’ve leveraged our role as an advisor to guide our clients in sustainable construction and environmentally sound operations and maintenance, and we’ve worked to “green” business practices for Colliers and our clients. Colliers International is the first and only commercial real estate services provider to be a founding partner of the World Green Building Council, which focuses on building, managing and living green.

I am thankful for the opportunities Colliers has to contribute our expertise and resources to so many deserving and diverse causes. Each of these gives us new opportunity to find common ground—an alignment of values with our colleagues, clients and community.

Whether your charity of choice is for kids or for whales, whether you support it by swinging a hammer or signing a check, one thing is certain: You are making an impact through the power of partnership. K L knowledge-leader.com

rick dahms

As we emerge from one of the worst global