Veteran CBRE industrial agents set up new Melbourne commercial challenger AND Property

Two of CBRE’s top-selling industrial agents in Victoria are leveraging their combined 20 years’ experience working for the commercial real estate giant to strike out on their own with a new agency, AND Property.

Ricardo Cappelletti and Bryce Pane have hit the ground running after officially launching their challenger agency this week with on-market listings totalling more than $65 million already on their books and a keen eye on a lucrative niche servicing high-net-worth investors.

“We’re also exclusively working on somewhere between $100 million to $150 million worth of transactions off market,” Payne tells Business News Australia.

AND Property is an industrial property specialist with a focus on sales and acquisitions for clients, with the partners seeing key opportunities for their agency in $10 million-plus development sites.

“We’re a sales-focused business that targets development sites,” says Cappelletti.

“What we’d like to do is get mandates from our clients, roll up our sleeves and canvas according to those mandates, so we’re not just relying on listings to generate revenue.

“The beauty of working with private clients is that you are dealing with the decision makers and forming relationships with them.”

Cappelletti and Payne spent 10 years each at CBRE, building their expertise in the industrial sector. Prior to that, Cappelletti also had a stint at Melbourne-based commercial agency CVA.

Both have been recognised as high performers within Victoria's industrial market during their time at CBRE, with both noting that they had parted on good terms.

“We’re very grateful for our formative years at CBRE,” says Cappelletti.

“They gave us the freedom to learn, grow and succeed. But all good things must come to an end and it ultimately felt like the right time to build something for ourselves. We’re really excited for what the future holds for us and our partners.”

The partners left CBRE in September last year with a non-compete clause running to the end of the year. AND Property officially launched operations this week.

It is the first startup venture for both property professionals who see the industrial market holding its own as the standout property sector.

“Industrial is the most desired asset class from an investor’s perspective at the moment, while retail and office are experiencing headwinds,” says Payne.

“Rental growth has offset a softening in yields, but from a development perspective there are headwinds in terms of build costs, and land costs increasing making it harder for developments to stack up.

“However, there is high underlying demand for the end product supporting the sector.”

The partners say AND Property’s service-model is based on the principle of ‘prioritising relationships over one-off transactions’.

This includes partnering with developers, landlords and private investors with a view to building lasting relationships to drive business growth.

“We have a number of development sites we are working on at the moment which will turn into project campaigns in the second and third quarters,” says Cappelletti.

“The whole idea is to get our clients in and out of their projects. That gives us an opportunity to deliver four or five transactions potentially (through development sites) each year with the client because they know you are just as much invested in selling them the site as you are in the project’s success in the long term.”

The AND Property team is also leveraging new technology developed in house which the partners say utilises their database to better service clients.

The agency has scaled up its team to five, including senior manager Ben Quennell (a former CVA agent), agency process manager Chris Pane, and marketing and operations lead Jamie Blackburn.

“We’re running with a support-heavy model which means we can better service our clients,” says Payne. “This is only the beginning and there’s already so much on the horizon.”

Reflecting on the path ahead, Cappelletti describes Payne as a ‘formidable agent’ and ‘incredible business partner’ to join him on the new venture.

“The term ‘humbled’ gets thrown around a lot, so I won’t use it,” he says.

“Instead, I’ll say that I’m incredibly grateful to be able to partner with him for this venture. It also helps that he is, without a doubt, one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.”