Michael Gigliotti (left), Christopher Peck (top right), and Kevin Davis.
Michael Gigliotti, Christopher Peck and Kevin Davis
Senior managing directors and co-heads at JLL New York; CEO at JLL Hotels and Hospitality, Americas at JLL
Last year's rank: 15
The recipe has always been simple for the high-powered team that runs JLL Capital Markets’ New York office: consistency, execution and commitment to their clients.
Led by Michael Gigliotti and Christopher Peck of JLL New York and by Kevin Davis — who specializes in hotels and hospitality — the team originated $35 billion in total deal volume in 2024, of which $19 billion came from credit and equity brokerage.
Across 273 transactions — of which 71 percent were composed of multi-family or industrial deals — JLL handled everything from structured finance and agency lending to loan sale advisory and distressed asset services. And the team executed in a capital markets environment that didn’t even get hot or healthy until the final quarter of the year.
“We had a good year, it was up from the prior year, which is always good, but it was very back-end loaded,” said Gigliotti, who noted that dozens of deals emerged as late as December. “It all steamed out of that August and September first rate cut, people jumping back in, signing up, deals getting done. … That one month filled up like you wouldn’t believe.”
The deals the capital markets team completed ranged across asset classes and usually raised eyebrows in admiration at the level of debt secured for their clients.
JLL arranged a $1.13 billion CMBS refinancing for New York’s 3 Bryant Park, one of the largest office refinancings since COVID decimated the asset class. The deal also secured the largest construction loan ever in Florida — the $668 million deal to finance the 100-story Waldorf Astoria Hotel and Residences in Miami — and executed a $735 million SASB CMBS loan to refinance a 2,619-key hotel complex within the Walt Disney World campus in Florida.
“As the CMBS business moved from a principal business to a truly agented business, I think we were one of the first to recognize that and really start to educate the market, and educate our clients,” said Davis.
More than anything, Peck credits the team’s decade-plus of continuity, rather than the typical musical chairs of brokerage, for another successful year navigating the toughest waters of CRE capital markets.
“The three of us have worked together for 15 years, and there’s 30 people in the office who have also been here for 15 years, because people come, people stay, and they buy in,” said Peck. “I’m proud of it. It’s our competitive advantage.”
