Exclusive Listings

Marcus sought to get exclusive listings from sellers, insisted his brokers shared information and formalized the marketing process.

“Marcus & Millichap built a very good business really staying true to this idea that the most transparent market will get the best prices,” said Brandon Dobell, a research analyst and partner at investment bank William Blair & Co.

Co-chairman William Millichap was one of the first salespeople Marcus hired and the duo became partners in 1976, according to a 2011 profile in Real Estate Forum magazine.

“George has been so successful because he hired the right people and let them run his various businesses,” John A. Sobrato, a California real estate billionaire whose family-owned company developed more than 15 million square feet of properties in Silicon Valley, said in an e-mail.

Takeover Target

Marcus also cultivated developers, property service providers and investment companies that comprise closely held Marcus & Millichap Company. These include San Francisco Bay developer SummerHill Homes and Pacific Urban Residential, which is among the top five apartment buyers on the West Coast, according to its website.

“Service, investment and building companies don’t line up,” Marcus said at the Urban Land Institute in 2013. “Any one sector can be hurt but not all at the same time. I’ve been in brokerage for 40 years and made money in every year but one.”

As the commercial real estate industry consolidates, Marcus & Millichap may attract attention as a takeover candidate given its more than four-decade track record, according to Germain of JMP Securities.

This month, David Bonderman’s TPG Capital agreed to buy Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the largest closely held commercial property brokerage, for about $2 billion including debt and merge the company with its DTZ unit. TPG, based in Fort Worth, Texas, bought DTZ late last year. In January, DTZ completed the acquisition of brokerage Cassidy Turley.