Trammell Crow traces its name and vision to its founder who built his first industrial building in Dallas in 1948, shortly after being discharged from the U.S. Navy. But the road that led to his company's merger with CB Richard Ellis has been long and bumpy.
The down cycles of the 1970s and 1980s were not kind to the powerhouse developer. Like most other development firms, Trammell Crow suffered from a drastic cutback in activity during those periods, said Stan Ross, chairman of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. So, Trammell Crow began to transform itself into a real estate services company, adding facilities and property management, he said.
``What's happening now is that we have larger (real estate) companies than we ever had before,'' Mr. Ross said. Real estate companies have to become large global concerns to service their global corporate clients. And while technology is making it easier to manage large portfolios of properties, it is costly. This is leading to more mergers and acquisitions. Not only are smaller boutiques getting gobbled up, but large firms are choosing to merge with each other rather than pay the expansion costs, he said.