Epic Investment Services and MDC Group have announced an official merger into a fully integrated real estate platform with a portfolio worth more than $16.5 billion.

The platform encompasses 35 million square feet of office, retail, industrial and residential assets under management in Canada and the United States.

Operating in Canada as Epic Investment Services and in the U.S. as MDC Realty Advisors, the newly formed company combines Epic’s property and asset management expertise with MDC’s transactional acumen and development management experience.

Epic’s former COO, Craig Coleman, and MDC’s owner and President, Jeff Kohn, will be co-chief executive officers. Laetitia Pacaud, MDC’s former EVP of business development, will step into the role of chief operating officer.

This change sees the departure of Epic’s founding partners, Stuart Smith and Gordon Thompson. Across Canada and the U.S. Epic will employ 165 experienced real estate professionals with operating offices in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver within Canada, and in Denver, Phoenix and Chicago in the U.S.

“Epic today is known for being agile, and for providing institutional-quality best-in-class services in property and asset management. Now we’ll be able to provide our clients with the same quality but across all service offerings – right from asset acquisition to management, from development to disposition – with dedicated experts in each service line,” said Craig Coleman, co-chief executive officer in the press release.

Epic and MDC first partnered in 2008 to have greater reach in Western Canada.