Cresa Acquires Richmond-Based 7 Hills Advisors

This article appeared originally on Richmond BizSense.

After 13 years as an independent firm, local commercial real estate brokerage 7 Hills Advisors has joined the ranks of a large out-of-town competitor.

7 Hills was acquired last week by Cresa, a Chicago-based firm with 55 offices throughout the U.S. and Canada and over 1,300 employees.

Founded in 2012 with a focus on representing tenants, 7 Hills has brokered deals around town for businesses in a plethora of industries, such as restaurant Benny’s Pizza, local brewery Väsen Brewing Co., credit card startup Mission Lane and consulting firm The Fahrenheit Group. The brokerage is led by founder Christina Jeffries and principal Landon Hinton.

Financial terms of the deal with Cresa were not disclosed. The acquisition included 7 Hills’ Richmond office, which will operate under the Cresa brand. Its Virginia Beach office was not included in the deal and will continue to use the 7 Hills name.

Similar to 7 Hills, Cresa also focuses primarily on representing tenants and touts itself as the largest tenant-rep-exclusive brokerage in the world.

Rich Rhodes, Cresa’s executive managing principal, said he and his firm started to get to know 7 Hills about two years ago, by referring them to clients who were looking to set up in the Richmond area.

“We started doing a lot of business with 7 Hills. They were excellent and really well received by the other offices around the country with Cresa,” Rhodes said. “So that’s when the discussions opened about, ‘Hey let’s do something more here.’”

Hinton said 7 Hills wasn’t necessarily in the market to sell the firm but saw that joining Cresa was a good opportunity to grow.

“We were actually approached, and they aligned with what we’re doing down here,” Hinton said.

All of 7 Hills’ local staff is joining Cresa, with Jeffries and Hinton as principals, director Ali McCrickard as vice president and manager Laura Osborn as a marketing associate.