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☆ Read the memo Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent staff about the third round of layoffs since June
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Read the email Robert Reffkin, Compass' CEO, sent to staff announcing the layoffs Thursday morning. Robert Reffkin, the CEO of Compass, told staff on Thursday that the brokerage would be laying off more people. In an early-morning email, he said that the latest staff reduction comes amid "difficult economic times." The size of the layoff appears to amount to around 350 workers, or roughly 10% of the company's remaining staff, though Compass would not confirm a specific number. RobertRobert Reffkin | Founder & CEO

☆ Compass is laying off more staff as it races to cut expenses to cope with a cooling housing market
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Compass is laying off more people after two rounds of job cuts in the past eight months. The firm, which went public at an $8 billion valuation in 2021, now has a $1 billion market cap. The real-estate brokerage Compass told its staff on Thursday that it would be conducting another round of layoffs, with the money-losing firm seeking to further cut costs amid a weakening housing market. These layoffs follow rounds in June and OctoberAt the end of 2021, Compass had about 4,500 employees. In June, Compass let go of 450 employees across corporate departments, including administrative, marketing, and other support staff.

Insider's rising stars of real estate span roles in leasing, affordable housing, and urban planning. We asked 20 of these young industry experts and innovators to offer predictions for 2023. 2022 wreaked havoc on the housing market: Mortgage rates rose at a fast clip, bidding wars cooled, the Airbnb market shifted, and some high-flying proptech darlings crashed back down to earth. Insider picked 30 rising stars of commercial and residential real estate who're transforming the way homes are sold and offices get built. Here are the predictions for 2023 from our rising stars:

Insider's rising stars of real estate span roles in leasing, affordable housing, and urban planning. We asked the young achievers about the books that influenced their careers or personal growth. For some of Insider's rising stars of 2022, the subject matter might surprise you. Other rising stars told Insider they wanted to learn from the trials and tribulations of successful people, like the Nike cofounder Phil Knight. Below, find the selection of 29 books that influenced the rising stars, along with their musings of what they learned or how they applied the lessons to their practices.

☆ Wall Street landlords who've stockpiled $110 billion are lying in wait for their biggest American home-buying spree yet
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( James Rodriguez | Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Institutional investors have earmarked as much as $110 billion to buy or build single-family homes. Institutional investors now own about 3% of the roughly 20 million single-family-rental homes in the US, according to Roofstock, an online marketplace for single-family investment properties. That would be nearly 9% of the roughly 88 million single-family homes in the US, according to the Census Bureau's most recent statistics from 2020. Better deals expected in the years aheadThere are signs the institutional investors won't have to wait long to begin buying. That leaves between roughly $70 billion and $80 billion that could still flow into the sector.

You can get the latest on that and much more from our finance newsletter, 10 Things on Wall Street. It's a snappy weekday read with the biggest stories on the Street, plus the latest on hot-spot restaurants, industry parties, and so much more. On the agenda today:Up first: Senior real-estate correspondent Daniel Geiger is giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the recent turmoil at Compass. With home sales dipping amid rising interest rates, Compass has cut workers and bled cash. In June, it laid off about 450 corporate staff, and in October, it let go of about half its 1,500-person tech team.

Carl Icahn had a textbook strategy for the Nevada-based energy utility Southwest Gas Holdings. In August, Southwest Gas' board decided against a divestiture, and the sale of subsidiaries that Icahn had urged remains uncertain. "Shareholders don't want to hear it, but you really have great difficulty selling a company at a good price today," the widely followed activist investor Icahn told Insider. via CNBCBut, like Icahn in the case of Southwest Gas, participants in this new onslaught may find themselves confounded by an increasingly complex and fraught business environment. According to Lazard, 37% of activist campaigns this year were launched by first-timers, the highest proportion since the company started tracking these figures in 2015.

Carl Icahn had a textbook strategy for the Nevada-based energy utility Southwest Gas Holdings. In August, Southwest Gas' board decided against a divestiture, and the sale of subsidiaries that Icahn had urged remains uncertain. That means that the sale of companies like Southwest Gas is off the table for the time being — or will get done at prices far lower than before. via CNBCBut, like Icahn in the case of Southwest Gas, participants in this new onslaught may find themselves confounded by an increasingly complex and fraught business environment. According to Lazard, 37% of activist campaigns this year were launched by first-timers, the highest proportion since the company started tracking these figures in 2015.

☆ A market downturn hasn't made activist investing any easier. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

But even with a market downturn, activist investors' campaigns haven't been the cakewalk some might expect. Insider's Daniel Geiger, Rebecca Ungarino, and Casey Sullivan spoke to industry insiders — including famed activist investor Carl Icahn — about why the current landscape isn't as accepting as some might think to activist campaigns. But when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and a difficult market environment doesn't mean we'll see the number of campaigns decrease. Click here to read more about why top activist investors like Carl Icahn say this line of work is riskier than ever. Here's a five-step plan to help you decide when that side gig you have should be the only gig you have.

☆ Compass CEO Robert Reffkin's memo on how to dump poor performers was good, but here's how it could have been better
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Shana Lebowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Robert Reffkin, the CEO of Compass, asked his leadership team to help root out underperformers. The message is compelling but doesn't tell leaders what employees must do to succeed at the company. The memo arrived after two rounds of layoffs, in June and October, at Compass, which has been struggling financially. But the Compass memo, while giving strong examples of what workers shouldn't be doing, didn't offer as much guidance about what the company needs from employees right now. But Galinsky said the memo lacked details about what exactly employees need to do in order to succeed at Compass right now.

☆ Compass CEO Robert Reffkin told his leadership team to step up managing out low-performing employees, as the company racks up losses and is forced to cut costs
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent an email to his leadership team on "managing out poor performers." Compass employees were disheartened. "It's also your responsibility to manage out employees who can't, or aren't, performing at that level," Reffkin wrote in the Sunday afternoon message. The full text of the memo was shared with Insider, and a Compass spokesman confirmed Reffkin sent the email. In June, Compass let go of about 450 corporate workers across departments.

☆ Read the memo Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent his leadership team, telling them to crack down on 'managing out poor performers' and quiet quitters
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent a memo to managers Sunday telling them to target poor performers. In the December 4 email, which has the subject line "managing out poor performers," Reffkin said to identify underachieving employees and to "move them out." "If you see evidence that someone doesn't want to stay at Compass and help us weather this storm, say something," Reffkin wrote. Compass needs you to know your employees and their work habits and results. I hold myself and my leadership team to this same standard.

☆ A tale of 2 tech giants: Struggling Meta is pulling back on offices in LA and NYC to cut costs, while TikTok is expanding
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

TikTok is seeking 150,000 square feet in Los Angeles to more than double its footprint in the city. One of the leasing executives who spoke with Insider said TikTok had considered spaces from "Santa Monica to downtown" Los Angeles. Meta, meanwhile, has 260,000 square feet in Los Angeles at the Brickyard, a recently built office complex in Playa Vista. The diverging appetite for office space between TikTok and Meta underscores a change in fortune for both firms. A spokeswoman for Meta said the company would not comment on its LA offices or its plans for them.

☆ The SEC is suing real-estate mogul Kent Swig's shady crypto partner for perpetuating a 'pump-and-dump' scheme with a different gold-backed crypto currency
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Alex Nicoll | Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Now the SEC is suing the CEO of Swig's company for an earlier, separate gold-backed crypto scam. According to the SEC, Braverman was said to be the chief operating officer of one of two companies the regulator targeted in the complaint. When Swig's company announced Digau, cryptocurrencies were on a sugar high, with bitcoin trading above $60,000. Neither Swig nor Dignity Gold would reveal to Business Insider any of the specific site locations where the company plans to mine. To extract the gold, Swig partnered with a mining company called Apache Mill Tailings.

In 2017, Insider highlighted its first crop of rising stars on Wall Street. of rising stars on Wall Street. Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest stories in hedge funds, PE, fintech, and banking — delivered daily to your inbox. For the last five years, Insider has been highlighting some of the best and brightest on Wall Street. Here's what 13 Wall Street rising stars are up to five years on.

☆ Meet 30 rising stars of real estate who are transforming the way homes are sold and offices get built at firms like Blackstone, Redfin, and CBRE
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Robert Davis | Dan Latu | Jordan Pandy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Meet Insider's third-annual slate of emerging talent in commercial and residential real estate. We selected 30 young professionals 35 and under whose leadership spans a vast industry. Insider has tried to capture the brightest of the bunch in our third-annual Rising Stars of Real Estate list. But real estate isn't all about making money. Presented in alphabetical order by last name, here are the rising stars of real estate for 2022.

☆ KKR is canceling its plans for a big new Manhattan office. It joins Meta, Netflix, and other big firms pulling back on office space.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Two senior leasing executives in Los Angeles told Insider that Meta just canceled its plans to expand by 300,000 square feet in the city. KKR's decision comes as New York City's office market flagsTenants who are on the fence about taking space have little incentive to rush to commit to deals as the city's office market continues to soften. Leasing activity in Manhattan totaled 20.27 million square feet through October, according to CBRE, 38% more than the same period last year. Leasing is on track to finish the year well below prepandemic activity in 2018 and 2019, when 32.4 million and 31.6 million square feet were leased respectively in total. Cushman & Wakefield data showed there was over 21 million square feet of sublease space available in Manhattan in September.

☆ I've refereed World Cup soccer games. You have to avoid social media or it will ruin your life.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Andy Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Mark Geiger is a former math teacher turned soccer referee who's presided over World Cup games. Doing under-eight matches back then, I never expected I'd be going to a World Cup. Since 2018, I've been the director of senior match referees, basically overseeing the MLS referees, assistant referees and video match officials. Before my very first World Cup match in Brazil in 2014, I asked myself: am I ready for this? There's always that little bit of nervousness going into each World Cup match because of the stage and the millions of people watching.

☆ One of Wall Street's toughest shops isn't for the faint of heart. But the rewards are plenty for those who make it to the top.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Apollo Global Management; Yahoo; Brightspeed; Legendary; Alyssa Powell/Insider1. That, in a nutshell, is life at Apollo Global Management. The firm works on a points system that could most easily be described as a profit-share system, Casey told me. In other news:France's Kylian Mbappe celebrates with the trophy after winning the World Cup REUTERS / Kai Pfaffenbach2. You're not just watching the World Cup.

☆ Real-estate tech firms are getting hammered by a cataclysmic reckoning that one VC called a cross between the 2001 dot-com bust and the 2008 market crash
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

The proptech sector is battling two challenges at once: a slowing housing market and a tech bust. For almost a decade, a growing group of companies have thrived by introducing tech innovations to a stubbornly analog real-estate industry. "Now we're seeing something that feels like a confluence between the 2001 dot-com bust in the venture-capital world and the 2008 market crash in real estate. Shares of both Opendoor and Redfin, which once drew investor attention to the soaring proptech industry, are worth roughly one-tenth what where they were a year ago. The company hasn't laid off any of its 300-person staff — including a roughly 50-person tech team — and doesn't plan to, Matthews said.

☆ Opendoor CEO Eric Wu says it will cut 550 employees as the $1.5 billion home-flipping company struggles to turn a profit
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Opendoor announced that it will lay off 18% of its staff, a total of about 550 workers. During third quarter the firm offered generous incentives to drum up sales, eating into its bottom line. Opendoor is offering laid-off employees at least 10 weeks of severance pay and health-care coverage through February 2023, he said. How Opendoor has coped with a cooling housing marketBut recently, Opendoor has had to slash prices and offer richer concessions to lure buyers. Datadoor found that it took Opendoor a median of 113 days to flip a home between July and September.

☆ Opendoor slashed prices and paid buyers' agents $3,500 a house in a rush to off-load thousands of homes in the third quarter
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Opendoor cut prices and gave incentives in the third quarter, losing cash on much of its inventory. Opendoor has been offering buyers $15,000 credits and their brokers $3,500 bonuses. A decelerating housing market poses a challenge for iBuying companies like Opendoor, which use home-pricing algorithms to purchase homes. In the third quarter, Opendoor sold between 8,100 and 8,550 homes, according to an estimate by Datadoor, a startup that catalogs Opendoor's acquisition and sales activity across the country. The high end of Datadoor's estimate, 8,550 home sales, would be an 18% decrease in the number of sales Opendoor reported for the second quarter and 32% below the first quarter.

☆ Even Barry Sternlicht is getting hammered by rising rates. A recent deal his $6 billion firm backed out of shows how.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The scuttled deal shows how rising rates have hit Starwood CEO Barry Sternlicht's bottom line. It has canceled its plans to purchase the Stamford, Connecticut, mortgage originator Luxury Mortgage Corp., according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal. The situation with Luxury Mortgage, however, shows how rising rates have also affected Starwood's bottom line. A budding partnership was upended by rising ratesIn recent years, Starwood has become one of Luxury Mortgage's biggest customers. Luxury Mortgage's business has also been strained in recent months.

☆ Blackstone and Prologis turned warehouses from safe and boring investments into white-hot assets. Now they're battling to see who can own more.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Alex Nicoll | Danielle Walker | Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

In other words, big money is buying up warehouse space as fast as smaller owners can sell. The coronavirus pandemic accelerated this change, with warehouse investment outpacing office investment in 2020 and 2021, according to CBRE. A Prologis warehouse in Ichikawa City, Japan. Prologis, Blackstone, and the rest of big money duke it outOther big-money investors have increasingly invested in warehouses. The UK's Segro once sold warehouse space to Blackstone — now it's acquiring its own warehouses for last-mile delivery that Blackstone might have otherwise picked up for itself.

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