CB Richard Ellis Memphis LLC history

By 1912, much of San Francisco had been rebuilt and the city was again flourishing, as was the firm of Tucker, Lynch & Coldwell.

When the United States entered the conflict in 1917, the firm, still known as Tucker, Lynch & Coldwell, embarked on its first non-real estate business venture--growing rice for the war effort on land it purchased in the Sacramento Valley.

However, by 1920, Kern had resigned and was replaced by Bruce Cornwall, the son of a respected San Francisco industrialist and financier, Pierre Barlow Cornwall.

The firm also continued to expand in the San Francisco Bay area, including the company's first office in Oakland, which opened in 1925.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, plunging the nation into the Great Depression, three of the partners, Coldwell, Cornwall, and Banker, were wealthy men and relatively unaffected.

In 1933, Coldwell, Cornwall & Banker also formed a subsidiary, Home Properties Co., Inc., and purchased 60 acres in the Rancho Santa Anita area of Los Angeles County for $18,000.

In 1939, Coldwell, Cornwall & Banker signed an exclusive agreement to originate and service mortgage loans in California for Aetna Life Insurance Company.

As the firm grew, so did the number of partners, to an even dozen by 1952, when one of the latest, Dan Duggan, finally convinced the others, who ranged in age from 38 to 70, that they needed a written partnership agreement.

Banker, then 75, suffered a heart attack in 1960.

In 1961, the Los Angeles partners asked a longtime client, Al Steffey, of Butler Bros. stores, to review the firm's books.

In 1968, Coldwell Banker issued its first publicly traded stock, selling 503,000 shares (about 29 percent of the company) at $25 per share.

There were other significant developments in 1969.

By 1973, Coldwell Banker had offices in seven western states and in Atlanta, Georgia.

Chicago-based Draper & Kramer, Inc., has managed, developed and leased the buildings since 1978, and most of the company's Memphis staff is joining Crocker Realty, which will manage the portfolio.

In 1981, the company launched a nationwide advertising campaign to acquaint the general public with the Coldwell Banker name.

Founded in 1986 by Adams and Earl Blankenship as Interstate Realty Corp., the company has been aggressively expanding its operations.

Insignia had been founded in December 1990 by Andrew Farkas, then just 30 years old.

The name was changed to CB Commercial Real Estate Group in 1991, after Sears sold the residential real estate operations to the Fremont Group, a San Francisco-based investment firm, which took the name Coldwell Banker Corp.

In 1992, the company was rocked further when a jury in Orlando, Florida awarded $8.5 million to the former owner of an office complex who accused CB Commercial, his leasing agent, of fraud for negotiating a lease for his largest tenant with another office complex.

By 1994, CB Commercial had revenues of $452 million and a net profit of barely $4 million.

CB Commercial went public in 1996 in an $80 million initial public offering (IPO) of stock.

London-based Hiller Parker May & Rowden was acquired by CBRE later in 1998.

By 2000, CBRE had revenues of $1.3 billion.

2003: Insignia Financial Group is acquired.