Cushman & Wakefield plc

What does Cushman & Wakefield own?

Cushman & Wakefield owns the Cushman & Wakefield brand and its global service platform covering brokerage, property management, valuation and advisory. It does not own separate consumer brands.

Is Cushman & Wakefield publicly traded?

Yes. Cushman & Wakefield trades on the NYSE under the ticker CWK. It went public in August 2018.

Who founded Cushman & Wakefield?

J. Clydesdale Cushman and Bernard Wakefield founded the firm in New York City in 1917 as a real estate management company.

Where is Cushman & Wakefield headquartered?

Cushman & Wakefield is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It is legally a UK public limited company while operationally based in Chicago.

Who owns Cushman & Wakefield?

Cushman & Wakefield is a widely held public company with no controlling shareholder. Institutional investors hold most shares, and Michelle MacKay serves as CEO.

What is Cushman & Wakefield's revenue?

Cushman & Wakefield reported $9.4 billion in revenue for 2024 across leasing, capital markets, services, and valuation and advisory service lines.

How many employees does Cushman & Wakefield have?

Cushman & Wakefield employs approximately 52,000 people across operations in about 60 countries.

J. Clydesdale Cushman and Bernard Wakefield founded the firm in New York City in 1917 as a real estate management company. It grew over the 20th century into a leading New York commercial brokerage and property services firm, expanding nationally and then internationally through organic growth and affiliations.

Rockefeller Group owned the firm for decades before selling it to Italian conglomerate IFIL in 2001. In 2007 IFIL sold Cushman & Wakefield to a group of investors led by TPG Capital for approximately $625 million, beginning the private equity era.

The pivotal move came in 2015 when Cushman & Wakefield merged with DTZ, a larger international real estate services firm itself formed from the merger of UK's DTZ, US firm Cassidy Turley and Australian company RCL. The combined company took the Cushman & Wakefield name, creating a global platform of competitive scale, and went public on the NYSE in August 2018.

Under CEO Brett White and then Michelle MacKay, who became CEO in 2023, the firm has focused on growing recurring services revenue, expanding its valuation and advisory platform, and improving margins against larger rivals CBRE and JLL.

Cushman & Wakefield has faced limited major controversy. The commercial real estate services industry draws periodic antitrust scrutiny over market concentration among the top three firms, and the firm has faced the standard litigation and dispute exposure of a global brokerage.

The firm was part of industry-wide scrutiny over commercial real estate appraisal practices and potential conflicts in advisory work, and it has navigated the reputational challenges common to firms advising on controversial properties or developments. No major regulatory penalties have been imposed.