CBRE snags Ravi from Marcus & Millichap

Ari Ravi, who since 2015 has led the Tampa office of commercial real estate brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap, has joined rival CBRE Group Inc. as a vice president focusing on retail properties.

Ravi will partner with CBRE’s Mark Shellabarger in the company’s Retail Investments division.

Ravi joined Marcus & Millichap in 2008 following a stint at Prudential Commercial Real Estate Florida as a broker and seven years later was promoted to Regional Manager, overseeing an operation that in both 2015 and 2016 generated annual transactional volume of $1.2 billion.

During his tenure at the firm, Ravi, 39, either participated in or oversaw more than $4 billion worth of total transactions.

“His expertise and deep roots in Florida will be instrumental for our clients,” says Mike DiBlasi, CBRE’s Tampa managing director.

Ravi becomes the latest in a series of high-profile moves to CBRE since DiBlasi became the head of the firm’s Tampa operation in early March.

Last month, the company lured office broker Barry Hanerfeld from rival Cushman & Wakefield, following similar moves by that brokerage’s KC Tenukas and Ryan Reynolds to CBRE.

CBRE’s Tampa operation has roughly 30 brokers and support staff that collectively generate about $25 million annually in revenue.

Ravi’s exit also marks the latest loss of talent at Marcus & Millichap’s Tampa office over the last six months.

Last December, Senior Managing Directors Frank Carriera and Michael Regan left Institutional Property Advisors, a division of Marcus & Millichap, to become executive vice presidents in CBRE’s Capital Markets Multifamily team in Tampa.

And just three weeks later, multifamily specialists Nicholas Meoli and Michael Donaldson departed for Cushman & Wakefield’s Tampa operation, to be executive directors. They had been at Marcus & Millichap since 2012.

During their respective tenures, the four agents had been involved in transactions with a total dollar volume of nearly $4 billion.