New York City-headquartered Compass Inc. (NYSE: COMP) announced the closing of its $1.6 billion acquisition of Anywhere Real Estate Inc. in an all-stock transaction.
Madison, New Jersey-based Anywhere, formerly known as Realogy, is the parent company of the brands Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Corcoran, and Sotheby’s International Realty. The transaction, which was announced in September, will have an enterprise value of about $10 billion, with a global workforce of 340,000 operating in every major US city and approximately 120 countries and territories.
“Our collective vision is to become the best in the world at empowering real estate professionals with everything they need to realize their entrepreneurial potential,” said Compass Chairman and CEO Robert Reffkin. “What makes this moment unique is not a transaction that combines two companies – it’s that the industry’s most respected brands and professionals are coming together on a single, modern technology platform that will help them save time, grow their business, and better serve their clients.”
I’m a Coldwell Banker agent in Los Angeles. We are keeping our Coldwell Banker brand. Along with 99% of my colleagues, both Coldwell Banker & Compass, we are all very excited about this! Our collective power to be even greater has just gone up 1,000%!
How a normal government would react to this merger of top-end companies in a market we will never know. Anti-trust used to mean something, now it is a history lesson told to economics or business majors as a footnote to the old days when we had regulations to protect the working class.