Brokerage

One of the country's largest commercial real estate brokerages, Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, has named a new president and chief executive. John J. Kerin, 54, will replace Harvey Green at the helm of the company July 1. Green announced his pending retirement in April after leading the company for a decade. Marcus & Millichap is headquartered in Palo Alto, but Green directs operations from his base in the Encino office and so will Kerin. Kerin joined the company in 1981 as an agent and rose through the ranks.

Los Angeles stock brokerage Crowell, Weedon & Co. on Wednesday said it was acquired by a larger rival, though terms were not released. Chief Executive Andrew Crowell said his firm was bought by D.A. Davidson & Co. The deal would further strengthen the firms, Crowell said. Combined, they will hold $43.5 billion in client assets, with Crowell Weedon bringing in $9 billion of that. Discussions of a combination began about three years ago, Crowell said, but really took off in the last year and a half.

It feels like doomsday at mid-size Iowa futures brokerage PFGBest, where $220 million in customer funds have gone missing, accounts have been frozen by an industry regulator and the company's chief executive attempted suicide Monday. Less than a year after Wall Street brokerage MF Global imploded under similarly suspicious circumstances , the National Futures Assn. said it took “emergency enforcement action” against PFGBest parent Peregrine Financial Group Inc. and and its Peregrine Asset Management Inc. unit.

NEW YORK - The legal fallout from Facebook Inc.'s botched initial public offering last year isn't over, although regulators approved the $62-million plan by Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. to repay brokerages that lost money in the debacle. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's approval Monday does not stop the government or other parties from taking further legal action against Nasdaq for losses suffered in the Facebook IPO fiasco in May. Swiss banking giant UBS, for one, tallied its losses at $357 million and wants more money back than the settlement could offer.

NEW YORK -- Bullish retail investors are helping push stocks near all-time highs, according to retail brokerage TD Ameritrade. Retail investors have steadily been increasing their exposure to the stock market over the last seven months, said Steve Quirk, senior vice president of TD Ameritrade's Trader Group. Investors seemed to have shrugged off the looming spending cuts because of U.S. budget "sequestration" and the recent Italian election that threatened to rekindle European instability as the continent tries to overcome its debt crisis and recession.

A federal grand jury today indicted Shearson Lehman Bros. Inc., a major Wall Street brokerage house, a former Shearson employee and six other individuals on charges they were involved in a gambling and money-laundering scheme. Included among the seven individuals was Joseph Mastronardo Jr., son-in-law of former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo. U.S. Atty.

Lynch, Jones & Ryan will continue to operate as an independent business, Citicorp said. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. LJR currently has membership on 15 stock exchanges, including London and Tokyo, and has 85 employees. Citicorp also announced that its tender offer for Quotron Systems has been successful and that it has purchased a majority of Quotron's outstanding shares.

Toy Gregory, formerly senior vice president and director of asset management of CNA Enterprises Inc. in Los Angeles, has formed an independent brokerage and asset management company called GregoryAdvisors. The Santa Monica firm provides services for office, retail and industrial property investors and occupants in the 11 Western states.

I have to laugh at the example given for a "discount brokerage shake-up" ("Low-priced Brokerage Is Shaking Up Real Estate," Dec. 1): The seller's townhome sold for $780,000, a whopping $1,000 above the asking price. By her own admission, similar models had already sold for above $800,000. A competent full service brokerage (agent) would have in all likelihood secured an offer far in excess of the previous sale comps. One wonders whether Kathryn Lemon would still be crowing about a fall cruise if she knew that she could have sold her property in excess of $840,000, more than making up for the cost of a "high-priced brokerage."

Michael H. Fusco, a former PaineWebber Inc. executive, has been named president of Morgan, Olmstead, Kennedy & Gardner Inc., a Los Angeles-based securities brokerage and investment banking firm. He succeeds Bryan L. Herrmann, who becomes vice chairman of the brokerage. Herrmann will also continue as president of its parent company, Morgan, Olmstead, Kennedy & Gardner Capital Corp.

NEW YORK -- Bullish retail investors are helping push stocks near all-time highs, according to retail brokerage TD Ameritrade. Retail investors have steadily been increasing their exposure to the stock market over the last seven months, said Steve Quirk, senior vice president of TD Ameritrade's Trader Group. Investors seemed to have shrugged off the looming spending cuts because of U.S. budget "sequestration" and the recent Italian election that threatened to rekindle European instability as the continent tries to overcome its debt crisis and recession.

The gig: Nick Segal is president and a founding partner of real estate brokerage Partners Trust, which specializes in the high-end, luxury markets of the Southland. It's his latest endeavor in a real estate career that has spanned decades and included stints with Sotheby's International Realty and DBL Realtors, which Sotheby's acquired in 2004. Partners Trust has offices in Santa Monica, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Pasadena and Rancho Mirage. The firm, with about 100 agents, deals in expensive properties; last year, the average sale price was $1.65 million.

CBRE Group Inc., the world's largest commercial real estate brokerage, finished 2012 strong and optimistic as conditions improved in many real estate markets. The Los Angeles firm said Wednesday that its commissions from property sales rose 22% in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, led by a 32% jump in the Americas and a 31% increase in Britain. "We are very pleased with our strong finish to 2012," President Robert Sulentic said. "Despite continued fiscal and economic uncertainty, all of our global operating regions delivered solid top-line growth in the fourth quarter.

B. Riley & Co., a Los Angeles investment bank, bought stock research firm Caris & Co. to increase its sales and trading business amid a slowdown in the brokerage industry. B. Riley, founded in 1997, is adding nine analysts, 12 salesmen and four traders in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, San Diego and Atlanta, Chairman Bryant Riley said. Darren Caris, who was president of Caris & Co., will run research, sales and trading, the company said in a statement. Small brokerages including ThinkEquity, Rodman & Renshaw and WJB Capital Group Inc. closed this year as institutional investors turned to computerized stock trading.

CBRE Group Inc., the world's largest commercial real estate brokerage, turned a profit in the third quarter even as transactions slowed in the U.S. The Los Angeles firm said Tuesday that income from arranging deals to buy or rent space in offices, warehouses and other commercial properties was down slightly from the same period a year earlier. The reduction was more than offset by growth in CBRE's business of managing the real estate assets of other companies and growth in CBRE's mortgage brokerage.

Even the most financially conservative companies can be tempted by the lure of fast money. Crowell, Weedon & Co., a regional brokerage based in Los Angeles, has preached old-fashioned stock and bond picking to its clients since the depths of the Great Depression. But the company recently lost more than $3 million on credit default swaps tied to the housing market, according to two people who were familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it. The blowup occurred at a trading desk set up to make bearish bets on housing using the same kind of tricky financial instruments that nearly sank giant insurer American International Group Inc. in New York in 2008.

The acquisition from Josephson International Inc. will make New York-based Gruntal & Co. the nation's 16th-largest securities brokerage and investment banking firm. Josephson paid $17.5 million for Herzfeld early last year; Gruntal Financial will pay $4 million in debt, plus issue warrants on 2 million shares of its stock for the loss-plagued brokerage.

The Securities and Exchange Commission asked for a federal court order to stop Los Angeles-based Brentwood Securities and its president, Christopher Delahunty, from defrauding investors by siphoning off funds. The SEC charged that Delahunty and the firm misused more than $700,000 in customer assets by diverting the money into personal and corporate accounts. Delahunty and his attorney could not be reached for comment.

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for. Immigration assistance -- U.S. immigration laws have been changed to allow certain young immigrants who entered the country as children to apply for permits to live and work in the United States. Such changes could provide an opportunity for scams that young immigrants should be careful to avoid, California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris said in a news release. To protect themselves, prospective program applicants should check out attorneys online at the State Bar of California website or by calling (800)

NEW YORK — Knight Capital Group's lifeline may have headed off the Wall Street brokerage's collapse, but it did not allay questions over the firm's future. The Jersey City, N.J., brokerage, whose business processes 10% of all U.S. stock transactions, received $400 million of new capital from a consortium of private equity funds and other major financial players. It will keep Knight in business after suffering massive losses last week when a software glitch sent out a stream of unintended trades.