Last week, sitting with his laptop at San Diego International Airport, Scott Panzer fired off an email that ended up grabbing headlines and costing him his post at a major global real estate firm. Knowing Panzer, real estate insiders say, he’d probably do it all over again.
The top NYC real estate broker – who was vice chairman at leasing giant JLL — told The Post his aim was to start a “meaningful conversation” when he responded “reply all” to a companywide email from a top JLL official about the election of the 34-year-old socialist Zohran Mamdani as the city’s next mayor.
Panzer’s reply was provocative for sure — and for good reason, he maintains. Peter Riguardi, the chairman and president of JLL’s New York regional office, sent a memo urging staffers to “give (Mamdani) a chance to lead.” This was despite Mamdani’s thin resume, his pledges to vastly expand the welfare state, his radical views on policing and his refusal to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada”.
Panzer responded by comparing the sentiment to acquiescence that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Reached over the weekend, Panzer provided a written statement to The Post explaining what prompted his missive. He also didn’t apologize for his actions, which continue to roil the city’s commercial 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 exclusively told 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 comment.
Panzer, 67, may have been JLL’s biggest rainmaker, with accounts including the premier office tower at 9 W. 57th St. in Midtown Manhattan. Despite his reputation as a voluble presence at the firm, he has been known for his generosity mentoring younger brokers. “He’s such an amazing guy,” a protege working at a rival firm told 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 also should be noted, according to sources, that Panzer and Riguardi have clashed in the past, mainly over management issues inside the firm. JLL, like many major brokerage firms here, also has significant business dealings with City Hall. That said, when Panzer saw Riguardi’s Mamdani memo, his first reaction was shock. “Why is he getting involved in this?” he asked, according to a person with direct knowledge of his thinking.
Panzer’s next fateful impulse was to start a “conversation” about how his firm and business in general should deal with the firebrand Mamdani, whose own provocations have included threats to arrest Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited Gotham over his military response to Hamas terrorists after the Oct. 7 massacre.
This, insiders note, is despite the fact that Panzer isn’t particularly religious. He has told people he was raised half Jewish and half Christian. But he also is a student of history and politics – particularly when it might impact his clients’ 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.”
He added “Just when it seemed that moving 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.
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.
