SunGard Appoints NGKF Global as CRE Advisor

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Michael Ippolito, of NGKF

SunGard Availability Services, of Wayne, Pa., has appointed Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Global Corporate Services, New York, as its North American corporate real estate advisor, NGKF announced Monday. NGKF will manage real estate transactions for all of SunGard AS’s facilities, including sales offices, operations centers and data center expansions in the United States and Canada, and will also provide global lease administration.

SunGard AS is a business segment of SunGard Data Systems Inc., which also is headquartered in Wayne, Pa., and is a leading provider of disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting and business continuity management software.

It has regional offices in Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg and India and operates data centers in about 30 U.S. metro areas, as well as Calgary, Montreal and Toronto.

The SunGard AS North American portfolio includes about 5 million square feet of data center and operations space. NGKF Global Corporate Services had been providing lease audit services to SunGard AS before being awarded this transaction management and lease administration assignment.

“An important part of this win was the value proposition that Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Global Corporate Services presented to SunGard AS,” Michael Ippolito, chairman of NGKF Global Corporate Services, said in a release. “This included our leading-edge technology, the experience of our integrated team, the strength of our Data Center consulting group and our ability to deliver consistent transaction management and lease administration services in all markets.”

SunGard Data Systems had been NYSE-listed, but in August 2005 was taken private, in an $11.3 billion deal, by a consortium of private equity firms that included Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.