Ready for the competition.

For a team considered one of the most formidable in the investment sales business, Ron Cohen and Richard Baxter are surprisingly self-effacing. There isn't any secret to their success, they insist--it is all in experience and perseverance.

"It's a business of long-term relationships," explains Baxter, the more out-going of the two. "You try to build a repeat client base. Some of the buildings that we represent right now we have sold several times in the past."

The truth is that the Baxter/Cohen partnership in itself might be a phenomenon in a mutli-million dollar business. The two men have been working together for 23 years, since they met in college and both got part-time jobs at Bloomigdale's. Except for a brief period in the late 1970's, they have stayed together, working first at Newmark & Company and then at Edward S. Gordon (later Insignia/ ESG), choosing to function as a unit as opposed to two lone brokers.

"Richard specializes more in institutional investors and I work on entrepreneurs, but we work together on all of our deals," notes Cohen. "It helps us to bring together the resources of two people, instead of just working by ourselves."

According to Cohen and Baxter, what separates the mega-star sales brokers from everyone else is precisely the ability to cover as many different products as possible. Most New York owners have every kind of property in their portfolio, they explain, and being able to meet their needs on every occasion is important in getting a contract.

"We are really general practitioners of the New York real estate market," says Baxter. "We cover every property segment--from office buildings to multi-family to parking lots. And that's a philosophy that most major brokers, including Darcy Stacom, have adopted--we have to be able to do everything."

Cohen and Baxter made headlines recently, when they decided to leave long-term home Insignia/ESG (now CB Richard Ellis Real Estate Services) for Cushman & Wakefield. The decision was motivated largely by the contractual conflicts resulting from the recent merger of Insignia and CB Richard Ellis.

"We've know Bruce Mosler since 1981, when we worked together at Newmark & Company, and we talked to him from time to time about coming to work for Cushman & Wakefield," Baxter says. "Now the timing was right."

"It was the result of the merger fallout," adds Cohen. "We tried to resolve the contract conflict for eight months, but it didn't work out. Our leaving was amicable. It's just that prior to the merger there was a balance in competition in the investment sales department, and now our move restores that."

After a little more than two weeks at their new company, Baxter and Cohen say they feel right at home. They have established rapport with new colleagues Scott Latham and Jonathan Caplan and are currently working on several projects, some of which they brought over from CB Richard Ellis.

"We are working on the disposition of 86 Chambers Street right now, which is an office and retail condominium building, a disposition for a USGA building, we are about to put the former Russian Tea Room back on the market," Baxter notes. "We can see already that coming to Cushman & Wakefield will be a very profitable move."

Part of the reason the team preferred Cushman & Wakefield to some of the other recruiters was its international scope. The marketplace is full of foreign investors right now and they wanted to join a firm with a recognizable name.

"There are a lot of new buyers coming on the scene right now, especially on the debt and equity side, and Cushman & Wakefield gives us instant name recognition," Baxter notes.

"Plus, 85% of what we do is exclusive representation of the seller. If we get an assignment from an international investor, all of our offices will work with that company."

For now, both Baxter and Cohen seem to be happy with their latest career move. They are still getting settled at Cushman & Wakefield, but there is a palpable sense of relief in their knowing exactly what their roles will be.

"Cushman & Wakefield has its 87-year history, its stability, its longevity," Baxter notes, in what seems to be a veiled reference to the recent changes at Insignia/ESG. "That was intriguing to us."

As to any hard feelings between them and their former colleagues at CB Richard Ellis, Baxter and Cohen believe their move will restore the status quo.

"All the sales professionals we used to work with at Insignia/ESG have left after the merger," says Cohen. "And Darcy and Bill [Shanahan] used to be our competition before and they are our competition now, so the playing field is somewhat the same."

"We have a pretty formidable team here," adds Baxter with a smile. "Our feeling is: may the competition make us all better at what we do."