Joe Fallon

Title: Managing Principal, Cassidy Turley FHO

Age: 55

Experience: 30 years

Selling your locally-grown commercial real estate brokerage to a firm with offices across the country is not something one does overnight. And Joe Fallon and his partners from FHO Partners didn’t rush it when they sold the brokerage they crafted from the former Trammell Crow Co. to Cassidy Turley in September. Managing Principal Joe Fallon sat down with Banker & Tradesman to talk about the merger.

Q: I think the first question has to be, why did you sell your firm?

A: The primary reason we sold our company was to give us a bigger platform, from a scope of services perspective and a geographic perspective to service our clients. We feel that puts us in a much better position to be competitive here. We want to be able to compete at the very high-end of the marketplace, representing both users and landlords. And being part of a larger company with a larger toolbox of services allows us to compete much more effectively. We’ve already seen the benefits in the first 90 days of being with Cassidy Turley. On the corporate user side of the table … we just have more things that those companies need [that we can] offer now, specifically in corporate services, facilities management and project management. On the landlord side, there’s one very large assignment that we’re close to securing … [T]hrough the strength of our office, we’re going to get that assignment. But the relationship with this owner is with Cassidy Turley in a bunch of cities. So, it really enhances our being able to get that business … and to compete in the marketplace.

Q: Did you want to bring the firm in this direction before actually considering selling to someone?

A: It was always on our radar screen to do that. The questions we really had to answer first were: What’s the right time, and who’s the right partner? It took us four and a half years to actually sell. We were patient and talked to a whole lot of people about it. The most important thing to us was the cultural thing. If you’re going to sell your company or merge it with another one, you have to feel like you can roll up your sleeves and go to work with these people. The people we met were just really good, solid people. … [T]hey articulated to us their strategy and vision of building a company that’s going to compete very effectively on a national basis. After we peeled the onion and saw what their plans were, we got very excited about that.

Q: So, can you outline the new services you’re going to be offering going forward?

A: We’re going to grow our core brokerage group over a period of time on a very thoughtful basis. There are probably three specific service lines that we’re going to bring inside Cassidy Turley in Boston – project management, capital markets and property management.

Q: The new ownership must be affecting the company in ways good, bad or other. Can you talk about your employees’ reactions to it?

A: As far as our people are concerned, other than the re-branding … their jobs aren’t changing. The one change I will say for them is that we have more tools in the toolbox to service our customers. There’s a client of ours out in the suburbs who approached us about the possible sale of a building. So now we can interface with the Cassidy Turley capital markets people outside of Boston who are helping us with the valuation of the building and the ultimate disposal of the building. We’ve gotten very positive feedback from our customers and our employees.

Five Favorite Places To Travel

1. Martha’s Vineyard – "Because I own a home there."
2. Anywhere in the Caribbean
3. Italy – "For its history, culture, food and wine."
4. Paris – "Again for the history, but it is also a very cosmopolitan city."
5. Southern Florida – "From Nov. 15 to April 15, it’s a fantastic escape from Boston."