Who We Are

The rich history of C&W Services, a leading integrated facility services company, started almost three-quarters of a century ago with a small cleaning business in Cambridge, MA. Herbert Kletjian, a candymaker whose family had fled the Armenian Genocide, co-founded a janitorial service company in 1949 that targeted the area’s higher ed institutions: UNICCO, an acronym for University Cleaning Company.

Kletjian soon bought out his friend, turning it into a family business he ran until he died in 1969. Unicco expanded its markets and geographic reach over time, offering services that included maintenance of factory equipment and ventilation systems. American companies increasingly outsourced such work to cut costs and raise efficiency. Unicco needed 18,000 employees, 5,000 in Greater Boston.

Despite substantial growth as a janitorial and property-management services company across the United States and Canada, janitorial services remained its primary revenue. United Group, an Australian engineering services firm specializing in property management, found the company appealing. To expand into North America, especially facilities management in the U.S., United Group purchased Unicco in 2007.

The $408 million acquisition ended the Kletjian family’s ownership before United Group rebranded in 2009 as UGL Services. Two years later, in 2011, UGL acquired DTZ, a commercial real estate services firm based in London that thrived in Europe and Asia, broadening its global presence to 52 countries while establishing a leader in property services. Integrating the new acquisition into UGL’s operations, the combined company of 47,000 employees kept the DTZ name (affirming its brand recognition in property service with a history traced to 1784). DTZ relocated its global headquarters to Chicago.

But the series of moves involving the future C&W Services persisted: In 2014, UGL sold DTZ for $1.2 billion to a private-equity consortium: TPG Capital, PAG Asia Capital, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Under the new ownership, DTZ immediately pursued growth objectives, acquiring Cassidy Turley, a market leader in D.C. with 4,000 workers, to expand its commercial real estate presence in the U.S.

A year later, all the acquisitions, mergers, and organic growth culminated with a historic transaction: In 2015, DTZ acquired Cushman & Wakefield for $2 billion, creating one of the world’s largest real estate services firms. Founded in 1917 in New York by brothers-in-law J. Clydesdale Cushman & Bernard Wakefield, the namesake company brought strength to geographic areas that DTZ lacked — and vice versa. The entities merged into the new Cushman & Wakefield, taking the iconic name and creating a logo. With 43,000 employees in 60 countries, it generated $5 billion in revenue.