Elvis has left the building

Daniel Peek, who led Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P.’s (HFF) hospitality brokerage operation and who negotiated major sales of in excess of $1 billion — including fully half of the largest Gulf Coast lodging transactions in history — has left the firm for a New York-based brokerage.

Peek joined Hodges Ward Elliott in early June, as president of the company’s Hotel Group. The move came as HFF, where Peek was a member of the executive committee, was preparing for its July 1 merger with brokerage firm JLL.

In his new job, Peek will “work to build the firm’s overall hospitality brokerage platform through increased transaction volume and the development of new and existing client relationships,” Hodges Ward says in a statement.

Peek says in a statement that he joined Hodges Ward because of its “client-centric, collaborative approach.”

Throughout his career, Peek, 53, has completed transactions and debt structures with a total dollar volume of $30 billion.

In his nearly 13 years with HFF, where he was senior managing director and head of that firm’s hospitality practice, Peek brokered sales involving the Vinoy Renaissance Resort & Golf Club, in St. Petersburg; the La Playa Beach Resort & Club, in Naples; the Hilton Downtown Tampa; the Waldorf-Astoria Naples; the Westin Harbour Island, in Tampa; the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort; the Sandpearl Resort, on Clearwater Beach; and the Hyatt Regency Sarasota, to name a few.

Prior to HFF, Peek was a co-founder and managing director of Regent Street, an affiliate of Tampa-based The Plasencia Group, a pre-eminent hotel brokerage and consultant.

Though the privately held Hodges Ward has offices in Atlanta, Los Angeles and London, Peek will be based in New York.

In all, Hodges Ward has closed more than $50 billion in transactions — including $20 billion since 2013 — and has a pipeline in excess of $5 billion, the company says.