Richard Berzine joined Byrnam Wood, LLC as Senior Advisor and Principal in 2017 following 25 fruitful years at the helm of Richard Berzine & Company, Ltd. (RB & Co) a firm founded to provide strategic real estate advisory and brokerage services. During his quarter century at RB & Co. Richard was lead negotiator in lease and sale assignments totaling in excess of 18 million square feet of office and distribution space in fifty three cities in the U.S., Britain, France, and Hong Kong.
Richard has served as U.S. and U.K. real estate advisor to Pearson plc and subsidiary companies including the Financial Times Group, the Penguin Group and Pearson Education establishing their London and New York HQ’s. In 2011 / 2012 Richard led Pearson teams that negotiated two skyline changing deals in the NY / NJ metropolitan area: a 310,000 sq. ft. anchor tenant lease allowing Beacon Capital Partners to finance the redevelopment & expansion of Manhattan’s 330 Hudson Street and; a 206,000 sq. ft. anchor tenant lease allowing SJP Properties to finance construction of Hoboken’s Waterfront Corporate Center III. Together these two properties would house some 2,500 Pearson employees drawn from 7 different facilities.
Following Pearson’s recent restructuring Richard successfully subleased some 290,000 sq. ft. of Pearson’s 330 Hudson to TED Conferences, Deloitte, John Hardy, Concentric Partners, Adtheorent and erstwhile Pearson companies MergerMarket and Financial Times Group. That same restructuring allowed Richard to negotiate two subleases with JET.com to for 80,000 sq. ft. in Waterfront Corporate Center III.
Richard represented Interactive Data Corporation (IDC) in creating a new HQ in Bedford Massachusetts; he subsequently negotiated new leases for IDC in Manhattan, and Westchester County while renegotiating its European HQ lease in London.
Richard also established regional HQ’s for FTSE (the global index company) in New York and Hong Kong. Other notable clients served by Richard included The Economist Newspaper Group in London, Hong Kong, New York, Cambridge MA, Chicago and Miami as well as Prudential Insurance Company of America, Wheat First Securities, the law firm of Hunton & Williams, Wexford Management LLC and Great Britain’s Northern & Shell Group. Prior to founding his eponymous firm Richard spent eleven years at Rockefeller Group’s Cushman & Wakefield.
Since joining Byrnam Wood Richard has continued to execute assignments for Pearson plc companies. Notably, during the past year Richard led a Byrnam Wood team representing and advising Walmart Inc, on office lease matters in the NY - NJ metro area; these efforts included successful negotiation of an 80,000 square foot reversionary lease in Hoboken. Richard also participated in the Byrnam Wood team that represented First Jeffersonian Associates in negotiating a twenty (20) year extension / restructure of its lease with The Brinks Company for its 93,000 square foot high-security cash and precious metals warehouse facility located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Prior to founding his eponymous firm Richard spent eleven years at Rockefeller Group’s Cushman & Wakefield.
Richard is a Trustee of Saint Paul’s Cathedral Trust in America; in 2008 he was admitted to the Freedom of the City of London by the Court of Common Council. He served as a director of Pearson Real Estate Holdings Inc. and sat on the Dean’s Alumni Leadership Council at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He was twice elected to the Board of Tax Review of the Town of Canaan (Falls Village), Connecticut. A graduate of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government Richard holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration; his early career involved diverse areas of Federal, Regional. State and local public service.