Eastdil Secured
The real estate investment bank, now with a British owner
Who it is
Eastdil Secured is the firm institutional real estate calls when a deal is big, delicate or both. Ben Lambert founded it in 1967 inside Eastman Dillon as what The Promote calls the first real estate investment bank. Since then it has repeatedly sold and bought back pieces of itself: to PaineWebber, to Nomura, to Wells Fargo in 1999, and to a 2019 management buyout led by Roy March and Mike Van Konynenburg and backed by Temasek and Guggenheim at a valuation just over $400M. After BDT & MSD shopped it to suitors, Savills agreed in March 2026 to buy the firm for about $1.1B in enterprise value. The price is well below the $1.6B-$2B management had floated. VK became CEO, March executive chairman, and James "Mac" McCaffrey president. The deal pays mostly in Savills stock, with long lockups and noncompetes, golden handcuffs for a business whose value walks out the door.
The brand stands for scale. Eastdil won Green Street's 2024 office sales crown, and in 2025 it lost the national title to Newmark but won NYC, SF and DC, including 55% of San Francisco. It topped REA's 2025 M&A ranking, led by Kristin Gannon's work on Rithm's takeover of Paramount Group. Debt is now the engine: 42% of its 2025 revenue came from debt placement and advisory, including a SASB binge. In New York its marquee sellers are Will Silverman and Gary Phillips, who handled 590 Madison's $1B-plus sale to RXR and Elliott.
Distress is good business too. Eastdil has run note sales, receiver-led listings and lender-driven trades from 141 Willoughby to SF's ex-Ballast portfolios, and Daniel Parker is running the sale of Pinnacle's bankrupt rent-stabilized portfolio. Talent is the soft spot. In 2025 Newmark poached its Boler/Smolen multifamily team, and Eastdil sued six departing brokers, alleging they took confidential "cheat sheets" and a live deal. The brokers pushed back with an anti-SLAPP motion, calling Eastdil's approach heavy-handed.
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On The Promote Podcast3 episodes
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