Barbara’s Major Deal

Who wears the bright-red skirt in this family? When Barbara Corcoran recently sold her company to National Realty Trust, a New Jersey firm that owns dozens of boutique brokerages, she told her staff, “I’m not going anywhere.” But can a boss as individualistic as Corcoran function in a big corporate family? (One ex-Corcoranite grumbles that before the deal “she was down to one day a week in the office already.“) Many say she’ll give up control but stay on as a public face: Corcoran’s Scott Durkin describes the deal as “freeing her to do a lot more marketing, P.R., advertising – the stuff she excels at.” Whether that’s a happy marriage “depends on the wisdom of the buyers,” notes Bellmarc’s Neil Binder. “They’ll try to integrate Corcoran into their systems, and there’s going to have to be some sensitivity.” And, says Durkin, “nobody tells a New Yorker what to do.”

Barbara’s Major Deal