On "Synergies" of the Compass + Anywhere Deal

I recorded a podcast Friday with three of the best and most opinionated people in the industry—Greg Robertson (of course), James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson. Expect the episode to drop soon after editing and such.

Something that came up in our conversation made me curious, so I thought I’d look into it a bit more. The issue is that Compass in its acquisition of Anywhere has stated that they expect an “estimated $225M+ of net cost synergies” within 3 years of closing the deal.

That’s quite a bit of money. How might the new Compass go about achieving such cost savings, and what if anything does that imply for them and for the rest of the industry going forward?

All of this is speculation based on public data (both companies, thankfully, are publicly traded so information is available) and knowledge of the industry. None of this is any sort of advice - legal, investment or otherwise.

Let’s dig in.