WILLIAM E. KILEY JR.
Quits Coldwell
William E. Kiley Jr., who was appointed president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Central New England in September, resigned last week.
Kiley was the president and chief operating officer of Coldwell Banker Hunneman before the company merged with Lexington-based The DeWolfe Cos. two months ago to form Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. The company is owned by real estate powerhouse NRT in New Jersey, a subsidiary of Cendant Corp.
An NRT spokesman said that Richard J. Loughlin has been named acting president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Central New England. Loughlin, the former president of DeWolfe Real Estate, also serves as president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Southern New England. Loughlin will oversee more than 140 offices with about 4,200 sales associates in Greater Boston, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Hampden County in Western Massachusetts.
It was not clear if a more permanent replacement for Kiley would be named. Mark Panus, director of corporate communications for NRT, said Kiley was leaving “for personal reasons” and said it would be inappropriate to comment beyond that about his departure.
Kiley did not return two calls from Banker & Tradesman last week.
“It was a big surprise,” said a longtime employee of the firm, upon hearing about Kiley’s resignation. Kiley resigned last Monday. B&T first reported the story on Tuesday on its Web site, www.Bankerandtradesman.com.
But Dick Cahill, president of Jack Conway & Co., the area’s largest independent real estate firm, said it is not unusual for executives to depart after a big merger. “I really truly was not surprised about that [Kiley’s resignation],” said Cahill, who has known Kiley for about 10 years.
The recent merger between DeWolfe and Coldwell Banker Hunneman brought together two companies that “have been competitors from day one,” according to Cahill. “Now you’re mixing, in some cases, oil and vinegar,” he said.
Cahill said the “cultural change” that comes along with being acquired by a large, out-of-state publicly traded company that has to report profits to stockholders and may not be as understanding with local offices that are not performing well financially, may not have been a good fit for Kiley who “knows his local markets.”
“Knowing Bill, I know there’s a lot changes going on when you have a merger like this and a buyer like this … and a lot of this is going to be in some ways against the grain of what he’s doing,” said Cahill.
Kiley, a resident of Manchester-by-the-Sea and a Boston University graduate, started his real estate career in 1970. Some 20 years later, Kiley became president of Hunneman & Co. Under his leadership, the company affiliated with Coldwell Banker in 1991 and was acquired by the NRT in 1998.
In the summer, some longtime Bay State Realtors were surprised by the merger of Coldwell Banker and DeWolfe, saying it was hard to imagine the publicly traded New England company easily identifying with a corporate mega-company mentality.
But other insiders felt that NRT’s entrance into the New England market was just a matter of time given that the real estate giant has been gobbling up independent real estate companies in other parts of the country.
After the merger was officially complete and Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage was formed, the company appointed presidents for each of its three operating companies in New England in September.
In addition to Kiley and Loughlin being named presidents, James McKeon was appointed president of the Northern New England division, which has 18 offices and 450 sales associates serving Maine and New Hampshire. McKeon formerly was a senior vice president of sales at DeWolfe.
The Southern New England division has 36 offices with 1,100 sales associates serving Connecticut, Rhode Island and Hampden County in Western Massachusetts. The Central New England division has 108 offices and more than 3,100 sales associates in Massachusetts who focus on the Greater Boston market.
Banker & Tradesman reporter Joe Clements contributed to this report.
