Before Compass announced plans to acquire Anywhere in a $1.6 billion deal[1], the brokerage had been gradually acquiring several other firms of varying sizes across the country.
One of those firms was Latter & Blum, a brokerage whose 3,100 agents were a force across the Gulf Coast, and which was brought under the Compass umbrella in the spring of 2024.
Many agents affiliated with Anywhere’s brands, who will soon be impacted by the Compass deal, are likely wondering what the acquisition means for them. And looking at where things stand now for Latter & Blum, about 18 months after the firm was acquired by Compass, may offer a clues.
Branding
Latter & Blum’s website still retains the domain name latter-blum.com[2]. But when users navigate to the site, they will find Compass branding thoroughly intermixed with Latter & Blum’s.
“Latter & Blum is now Compass,” a banner at the top of the webpage announces, with a few paragraphs of information about how the century-old brokerage now has the power of Compass’ shiny tools powering it.
“Our agents are the same trusted professionals who have extended the legacy of Latter & Blum — now backed by Compass’s industry-leading tools and technology,” the page states.
Latter & Blum’s homepage
The site also features a map labeled as “Latter & Blum | Compass Area of Coverage,” and on its “About Us” page[3], features Latter & Blum’s general philosophy and motto: “We’re always building.”
Latter & Blum | Compass market coverage map
When the companies first announced the transaction, they noted that the transition would begin with co-branding, then Latter & Blum would ultimately switch over to the Compass brand entirely. The current branding on the firm’s website seems consistent with that plan.
Latter & Blum agent Jessica Antilley told Inman that most agents at the firm have largely changed branding over to Compass, including on their email addresses and signature lines. But with the transition, nothing has really materially changed at the company’s offices in terms of layout or the people who work there — although the sign on the door now says “Compass.”
“From the outside looking in, everything looks quite the same,” Antilley said.
Tools
One of the attractions for many agents and brokerages who join Compass is the brokerage’s proprietary tech suite. The brokerage’s website touts that Latter & Blum agents now have access to Compass’s back-end tools, but Antilley said that, at this point, agents have access to “a lot,” but not all of Compass’s technology. The full platform is still being rolled out to agents in phases, so some have more access than others.
“There’s some of us who are trying things out before they roll it out [to everyone],” Antilley said. “So if there’s bugs and glitches, we get to report it to the person who’s in charge of that.”
Antilley said her office in Baton Rouge was also assigned an agent experience manager by Compass to help agents learn the ins and outs of the new platform, including marketing and branding tools.
When the transaction took place in 2024, then-Latter & Blum CEO Lacey Merrick Conway asserted that the firm’s agents and local community would be gaining Compass’s “cutting-edge tools.”
In a press statement released at that time, Merrick Conway also highlighted Compass’s “expansive referral network” as an advantage to be gained through the deal. The firm’s agents now have access to Compass’s private listing network, Antilley confirmed, which is ever-expanding and advantageous to Compass-affiliated agents as the brokerage acquires more firms.
Former leadership
When Latter & Blum first became a part of Compass, the brokerages said that Latter & Blum Chairman Robert “Bob” Merrick and CEO Lacey Merrick Conway[4] would stay on to help manage regional operations. Merrick Conway, specifically, became a regional vice president; Bob Merrick passed away[5] at the age of 80 this past spring.
As Compass’s M&A efforts continued, the firm promoted Merrick Conway to executive vice president of mergers and acquisitions[6] in May of this year. Compass explained at the time that Merrick Conway had spearheaded significant growth in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas since signing on with Compass, and her experience paired with her existing relationships within the industry made her a valuable teammate for the firm’s future growth plans.
As executive vice president of M&A, Conway’s primary role is to identify and execute partnerships with other firms across the country to promote Compass’s expansion.
The day-to-day
Although Latter & Blum is still in the process of transitioning, Antilley said she feels that everything has gone pretty smoothly thus far.
“Robert [Reffkin] was in Baton Rouge in September, and some of us had the opportunity to go to dinner with him,” Antilley told Inman. “I think for the most part, it’s been well-orchestrated. You know, their business model is a little different than what it was in the past, and there’s different tools for Realtors [versus] a transaction coordinator … So everybody’s kind of still learning it. But for the most part, nothing has changed visually in our office or the people within our office.”
Latter & Blum’s evolution might be an indication of what’s to come with Anywhere brands — but it also might not be.
The Anywhere transaction is unprecedented in terms of scale when compared to what Compass has accomplished through M&A in the past.
The Latter & Blum acquisition involved about 3,100 agents across the Gulf Coast who had closed around $3.6 billion in sales in 2023. The Anywhere deal, if it closes[7], will add roughly 51,000 agents from the company’s owned-brokerages and 250,000 agents from its franchises. Anywhere sold $184 billion in sales volume in 2024, according to RealTrends.
“[The transition] went well,” Antilley said of her own firm’s switch to Compass. “Now, I don’t know how 300,000 [Anywhere] agents will do. I would suspect that’s going to be a little bit different — ours was nothing compared to that. So I’m not sure how that will play out, but obviously, they have a plan in place, I would think.”
Additionally, Anywhere is unique in that the company owns seven distinct real estate brands. Compass has said in its statements since the merger that the deal will preserve the unique identities of each brand, which would be a departure from most of the firm’s other acquisitions in the past, perhaps with the exception of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate[8].
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References
- ^ Compass announced plans to acquire Anywhere in a $1.6 billion deal (www.inman.com)
- ^ latter-blum.com (www.latter-blum.com)
- ^ “About Us” page (www.latter-blum.com)
- ^ Latter & Blum Chairman Robert “Bob” Merrick and CEO Lacey Merrick Conway (www.inman.com)
- ^ Bob Merrick passed away (neworleanscitybusiness.com)
- ^ executive vice president of mergers and acquisitions (www.inman.com)
- ^ if it closes (www.inman.com)
- ^ @properties Christie’s International Real Estate (www.inman.com)
- ^ Luxury Lens Newsletter (www.inman.com)
- ^ Click here to subscribe. (www.inman.com)
- ^ Email Lillian Dickerson (www.inman.com)