NEW YORK— HOTEL BUSINESS® has learned Los Angeles, CA-based CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) is set to acquire the Insignia Financial Group in what would (reportedly) be a US$400-million transaction. Such a move would effectively reshape the real estate brokerage arena in general, and similarly portends a major change in the dynamics of the hotel-brokerage scene as well, impacting Insignia/ESG Hotels Partners in New York and Insignia Hotel Partners in London. Sources at Insignia/ESG Hotel Partners here declined to comment on reports of this undertaking, while phone calls placed to CBRE President Brett White in Los Angeles went unreturned. Overseas sources reportedly maintain papers have already been signed in preparation for CBRE’s takeover of Insignia, an action ostensibly thwarting an avowed move by Insignia management to take the company private through a management buyout as the CBRE bid would come in significantly in excess of the current $7 Insignia share price.—Michael Billig
