NYC realtor fired over controversial Zohran – Business News
Last week, sitting together with his laptop computer at San Diego International Airport, Scott Panzer fired off an electronic mail that ended up grabbing headlines and costing him his post at a main world real estate firm. Knowing Panzer, real estate insiders say, he’d most likely do all of it over again.
Panzer’s reply was provocative for sure — and for good motive, he maintains. Peter Riguardi, the chairman and president of JLL’s New York regional workplace, despatched a memo urging staffers to “give (Mamdani) a chance to lead.” This was regardless of Mamdani’s skinny resume, his pledges to vastly develop the welfare state, his radical views on policing and his refusal to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada”.
Scott Panzer’s purpose was to start out a “meaningful conversation” when he responded “reply all” to a companywide electronic mail from a prime JLL official in regards to the election of the 34-year-old socialist Zohran Mamdani as town’s subsequent mayor. Patrick McMullan through Getty Images
Panzer responded by evaluating the sentiment to acquiescence that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Reached over the weekend, Panzer offered a written assertion to The Post explaining what prompted his missive. He additionally didn’t apologize for his actions, which proceed to roil town’s industrial real estate sector.
“As an industry we need to be able to have open, meaningful conversations on the serious challenges the new mayor’s leadership presents. My views are shared by millions of people who do not speak up for fear of retribution,” Panzer solely informed the Post. “The real estate industry can ill afford inexperienced management by a novice politician with radical ideas.”
JLL reps didn’t return repeated requests for remark.
Panzer, 67, could have been JLL’s largest rainmaker, with accounts together with the premier workplace tower at 9 W. 57th St. in Midtown Manhattan. Despite his fame as a voluble presence on the firm, he has been recognized for his generosity mentoring youthful brokers. “He’s such an amazing guy,” a protege working at a rival firm informed The Post. “He’s very successful but unlike most people in this crappy industry, he’s a decent guy. And he isn’t very PC about speaking his mind.”
It additionally needs to be famous, based on sources, that Panzer and Riguardi have clashed up to now, primarily over management points inside the firm. JLL, like many main brokerage companies right here, additionally has vital business dealings with City Hall. That mentioned, when Panzer noticed Riguardi’s Mamdani memo, his first response was shock. “Why is he getting involved in this?” he requested, based on a particular person with direct information of his pondering.
Peter Riguardi, the chairman and president of JLL’s New York regional workplace, despatched a memo urging staffers to “give (Mamdani) a chance to lead.” Erik Thomas/NY Post
Panzer’s subsequent fateful impulse was to start out a “conversation” about how his firm and business generally ought to deal with the firebrand Mamdani, whose own provocations have included threats to arrest Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited Gotham over his army response to Hamas terrorists after the Oct. 7 bloodbath.
This, insiders observe, is although Panzer isn’t notably spiritual. He has informed people he was raised half Jewish and half Christian. But he is also a pupil of historical past and politics – notably when it would influence his shoppers’ properties.
“Is it just me, or does this sound eerily similar to what much of Germany and Europe said about you know who back in 1938?” he wrote. “We all know how that worked out for them — and for the world.”
When Panzer noticed Riguardi’s Mamdani memo, his first response was shock. “Why is he getting involved in this?” he requested, based on a particular person with direct information of his pondering. AP
He added “Just when it appeared that shifting from [former Mayor Bill] de Blasio to [Mayor Eric} Adams couldn’t be much worse, New Yorkers have once again dipped their toes into the boiling cauldron of socialist reform.”
In a final, cage-rattling bomb, Panzer noted a trip he took to Istanbul several years back. “I didn’t mind hearing the adhan (a Muslim prayer) five times a day for the few days I was there – I would not want that to be a 365 day event. But alas, this too is just around the corner for NYC.”
A few hours after Panzer hit “send,” he was in the air flying back to New York when he got a message from JLL’s HR and management that they needed to talk immediately.
Panzer called when his flight got in around 10 p.m. “You never speak to me unless something is wrong” he told the JLL executive on the other end of the line, according to a source. The voice promptly patched in HR, which told him that his email was “not in keeping with company policy.”
JLL offered no specifics other than to say he was being ousted from the firm.
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Panzer’s response, according to a source: “I’m not going to fight you,” adding that as a student of history, he just wanted to get employees thinking about what has happened in the past when people acquiesced to radicals.
Eight seconds later, after 16 years at the big commercial real estate firm, Panzer’s access to his email and other company portals was cut off, sources said.
As for his future, Panzer is still trying to decide, according to people close to him, who add he’s made enough money that he doesn’t have to work. JLL will be keeping his clients as per their brokerage agreement. Meanwhile, Panzer has received countless emails of support “from people who feel they can’t speak up,” he has told friends.
There is also talk in the New York real estate industry that some clients might boycott JLL for cutting ties with a top rainmaker – just because he spoke his mind.
