THE LAST WORD — RIC CLARK ON BROOKFIELD’S RECENT MOVES

Mr. Clark

By Jotham Sederstrom
June 9, 2011

Earlier this week, Brookfield Office Properties announced major shifts and promotions to its executive management team, including the surprise hiring of CB Richard Ellis’ legendary broker, Mitchell Rudin, as president and chief executive of U.S. commercial operations. Meanwhile, Ric Clark announced he would relinquish his role as president of the global development firm while remaining on as chief executive of corporate operations and chairman of Brookfield Office Properties Canada. Mr. Clark, 53, spoke with The Commercial Observer about those decisions and what it means for the future.

The Commercial Observer: Was this a position Mitch was immediately interested in? Had he been considering a move from CB Richard Ellis for some time?
Mr. Clark: I don’t think he had even entertained moving on, and he was really happy. He had been with CBRE for 21 years, but it was one of those opportunities that was a perfect fit and doesn’t come along often. It interested him so he thought about it for a while and we just kind of entered into a dialogue and we eventually were able to convince him to leave—even though I think he was otherwise happy to stay put.
 
Was there one thing over all else that convinced him to take the job?
We’ve got a lot going on in the United States. We are fortunate to have a major position in what we believe are the two emerging neighborhoods in Manhattan. The first is Lower Manhattan, which is going through a dramatic shift. It’s just a year or two away from making a complete transformation. And then next up after that, and only a couple years behind it, is the West Side of Manhattan where we have a site that we think is the best-positioned site in the city. And we’re expecting to build 5.4 million square feet of new property.

So I think the prospect of being involved in those two things over the next several years had to be very exciting to Mitch.

And what about you? You’re relinquishing your title as president of Brookfield Office Properties. What does that mean for the company, and why now?
I have two roles. First, for Brookfield Asset Management I’m the senior managing partner and global head of real estate activities. They’re the sponsor and principal shareholder of Brookfield Office Properties, where I’m the chief executive—and prior to this announcement I was the president as well.

A couple of years ago I had relinquished the president’s title when I promoted a guy internally, Steve Douglas. And then he left after about a year into that role to become the CFO of General Growth Properties, which we were recapitalizing. The truth is I’m relinquishing a role I had already relinquished. So I’m relinquishing it hopefully for the last time