Ebby Halliday buys Williams Trew agency

Williams Trew, a dominant player in the Fort Worth residential market, has been sold to Dallas-based Ebby Halliday Real Estate, which grew in 70 years from a one-woman office to become Texas’ largest agency.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Williams Trew will continue to operate under its own name in Fort Worth, similarly to how an earlier Halliday acquisition, Dave Perry-Miller Real Estate, functions in the Park Cities and Highland Park, said Marshall Boyd, a Williams Trew co-founder.

Ebby Halliday Companies include mortgage, insurance and title companies. In 2013, sales topped $6.4 billion. In Dallas, it has a 13.5 percent market share, with its nearest rival controlling just 4 percent, the company said in a news release.

Williams Trew was formed in 2000 with a number of veteran agents from what was once the William Rigg agency. Last year, it had record sales of $450 million and expects to top it in 2014, said Boyd. Market share breakdown was not available, but his firm outpaces rivals in Fort Worth, he said.

Asked how things will change, co-founder Martha Williams said: “We’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

“We will just have more firepower,” Boyd added.

The acquisition closely follows an out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit that Williams Trew brought against a Dallas rival, Briggs Freeman, which it accused of violating its contract as a Sotheby’s International Realty affiliate by operating within Trew’s Fort Worth territory.

The suit, filed in September 2013, also accused Briggs Freeman of poaching agents, then opening unauthorized offices downtown and on the west side, as well as running ads citing a Fort Worth office that didn’t exist, according to court documents filed with a state court in Fort Worth.

Sotheby’s itself had lodged a federal suit in Dallas the month before, claiming breach of its franchise agreement when Briggs Freeman and five of its agents encroached into the Fort Worth market.

Before Monday’s takeover by Ebby Halliday, Williams Trew sold its Sotheby’s Fort Worth franchise to Briggs Freeman as part of the Dec. 4 settlement, said Robbie Briggs, CEO of the Dallas agency. He declined to disclose terms of the settlement, but insisted, “I did nothing wrong.”

During the case. U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater ordered Briggs to publicly advertise that his firm did not operate in Fort Worth and sanctioned several of his agents.

Boyd said the suit against Briggs Freeman was settled “with terms favorable to us.” He declined to elaborate.

The musical chairs in the North Texas real estate continued to shift Monday when Briggs announced he was opening a Fort Worth office, starting with about six employees and hoping to have 75 to 100 in a relatively short period of time.

“We are looking for space in the heart of Fort Worth but will open in a temporary space in mid-January,” said Briggs spokeswoman Ellen Sedeno.

Its agents will include Southlake-based John Zimmerman, who was the leading non-online real estate agent last year in the market that includes the Fort Worth school district, she said. Zimmerman and his wife, Nicole, were among defendants in the two lawsuits. Nicole Zimmerman, who was forced to give up showing homes by court order this spring, will return to work as an agent, Briggs said.

A Briggs news release contained warm words from Sotheby’s, which resolved its suit against the Dallas firm two weeks ago.

“This transition recognizes that the Dallas-Fort Worth area has become a unified real estate market, and we are pleased that Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty will now provide our services throughout the entire DFW Metroplex,” said Philip White, Sotheby’s CEO.

This story was originally published December 15, 2014 at 6:42 PM with the headline "Ebby Halliday buys Williams Trew agency."