Q4 2024 Jones Lang LaSalle Inc Earnings Call

Regina: Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Jones-Langlaisal 4th Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

Regina: After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad.

Speaker Change: To withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Hogan, Interim Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Brian Hogan: Thank you and good morning. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call for Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated.

Brian Hogan: Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings release along with a slide presentation and Excel file intended to supplement our prepared remarks.

Brian Hogan: These materials are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Please visit IR.jll.com.

Brian Hogan: During the call, as well as in our slide presentation and supplemental Excel file, we referenced certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors.

Brian Hogan: We include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP in our earnings release and slide presentation.

Brian Hogan: We also are friends of Resilient and Transactional Revenues, which we define in the footnotes of our earnings release.

Brian Hogan: As a reminder, today's call is being webcast live and recorded.

Brian Hogan: Transcript and recording of this conference call will be posted to our website.

Brian Hogan: Any statements made about future results and performance, plans, expectations, and objectives are forward-looking statements. Actual results and performance may differ from those forward-looking statements as a result of factors discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K and in other reports filed with the SEC.

Brian Hogan: The company disclaims any undertaking to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Brian Hogan: Finally, a reminder that percentage variances are against the prior year period in local currency, unless otherwise noted.

Brian Hogan: I will now turn the call over to Christian Ulbrich, our President and Chief Executive Officer, for opening remarks.

Christian Ulbrich: Thank you, Brian. Hello and welcome to our fourth quarter 2024 earnings call.

Brian Hogan: We are pleased with our results for the fourth quarter and overall very strong 2024, exceeding the targets we laid out a year ago.

Brian Hogan: The investments we have made in our platform and people, both notable revenue growth and market share gains.

Brian Hogan: Our focus on enhancing operating efficiency throughout the course of 2024 is reflected in our improved profitability, free cashflow and leverage.

Brian Hogan: Starting with our financial results, revenue in the fourth quarter grew double digits.

Brian Hogan: driven by an acceleration in transactional activity and sustained growth in resilient revenues.

Brian Hogan: Transactional revenue growth was led by our investment sales, debt and equity advisory, project management, and leasing business lines, as we continue to gain market share alongside an improving real estate cycle.

Brian Hogan: The same time, client demand for innovative real estate management solutions and industry expertise drove continued momentum within resilient revenues.

Brian Hogan: At the consolidated level, adjusted EBITDA grew 20% in the fourth quarter, adjusted EPS grew 17%.

Brian Hogan: For the full year, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EPS grew an impressive 28% and 38% respectively. Both significantly outpaced 13% revenue growth.

Brian Hogan: testament to our ability to drive operating leverage across the platform.

Brian Hogan: Importantly, we are very pleased with the increase in our free cash flow generation, which enabled us to reinvest in our business, reduce leverage and return capital to shareholders in 2024.

Brian Hogan: Our strong balance sheet, liquidity position, and cash generation provide flexibility to prudently allocate capital where we see opportunities.

Brian Hogan: At the top priority, we continue to invest in our business to drive differentiation and deliver superior outcomes for clients.

Brian Hogan: During the quarter, we announced the consolidation of our leading AI capabilities into one platform we call JLL Parkins.

Brian Hogan: The technology powers tools, including JL-LGPT, commercial real estate's first purpose-built generated AI assistant, which launched in 2023, and is now used by nearly half of my colleagues.

Brian Hogan: NGLL Azara, our data analysis application designed to transform how business leaders interact with corporate real estate and facilities management data.

Brian Hogan: Combined with the extensive expertise of our people, we believe these applications will further accelerate our ability to differentiate in the market.

Brian Hogan: In addition to these exciting developments, we also announced an investment into a joint venture with Slate Asset Management in the fourth quarter.

Brian Hogan: Together, we will commercialize and scale JLL AssetBeacon, an asset management software to help clients optimize investment decisions.

Brian Hogan: For M&A, we continue to pursue select opportunities that we see augmenting organic initiatives and enhancing our platform to drive long-term growth.

Brian Hogan: Our strategy is reflected in our 2024 acquisitions of scale power solutions, which enhanced our technical and project management capabilities for data centers,

Brian Hogan: and Raise Commercial Real Estate, a technology-powered brokerage that accelerates our digital leasing platform capabilities.

Those integrations are progressing in line with our expectations.

Brian Hogan: Finally, we are actively returning capital to shareholders and have $1 billion remaining on our share repurchase authorization.

During 2024, share repurchases totaled $80 million.

Brian Hogan: The amount of future share repurchases will depend on our cash generation.

Brian Hogan: the macroeconomic outlook and geopolitical landscape and weight against our broader investment opportunity set. But as a minimum, we plan to offset any dilution from stock compensation.

Brian Hogan: With that, I will now turn the call over to Karen to provide more detail on our financial results and our 2025 financial targets.

Karen: Thank you, Christian. Our strong top-line performance for the quarter and the year reflects the strength of JLL's differentiated platform, services, and talents.

Karen: The revenue growth, along with our ongoing focus on operating efficiency, produced a meaningful margin expansion in earnings growth in 2024. Importantly, our initiatives to improve working capital efficiency help drive strong conversion to free cash flow.

I will now review our operating performance by segment.

Karen: Beginning with markets advisory, the increase in fourth quarter revenue was primarily driven by leasing, which generated double-digit growth across most geographies, notably the US, India, and Greater China.

Karen: Leasing revenue growth was broad-based across asset classes and led by office, which grew 20% globally and outpaced the 7% increase in the market according to JLL research.

Karen: The U.S. and Asia Pacific also meaningfully outperformed respective market growth rates for office.

Karen: The slight uptick in our industrial sector leasing revenue was geographically broad-based and compared favorably to the high-teens market decline.

Karen: Both Asia-Pacific and the Americas notably outpaced the respective industrial market growth rates.

Karen: Large transactions, where JLL historically has had a greater share of the market, increased in nearly all asset classes, though they remain well below pre-pandemic averages.

Karen: Property management growth in the quarter and the full year was a result of portfolio expansions in the U.S. and several Asia-Pacific countries, largely due to greater pass-through costs as management fees were flat for the quarter and increased marginally for the full year.

Karen: Higher market advisory adjusted EBITDA for the quarter and full year was primarily driven by leasing revenue growth.

Karen: The timing of prior year incentive compensation accruals adversely impacted year-over-year profitability for the quarter.

Karen: Compared with a quarter, the full-year profit reflected improved platform leverage.

Karen: Looking ahead, we continue to see growth in active tenant requirements and demand for higher quality assets.

Karen: The general stability of the OECD Business Competence Index throughout much of 2024 and a recent acceleration in the U.S. provides optimism for continued leasing growth in 2025, although possible headwinds from geopolitical developments may impact decision making.

Karen: Within property management, we expect trends from 2024 to continue into 2025.

Karen: While we work to bring together our teams and evolve our positioning under the new organizational structure we announced last quarter.

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Speaker Change: Shifting to our capital markets segment, an acceleration in investment sales debt and equity advisory revenue in the quarter and the full year was catalyzed in part by improved investor sentiment.

Karen: greater interest rate stability, elevated levels of dry powder, and more liquidity entering the market, which led to more institutional investors willing to transact.

Karen: In the quarter, revenue increased across asset classes, with significant growth in the U.S. multifamily sector and notable growth in industrial across the globe.

Karen: Our investment sales revenue, which accounted for just over 40 percent of segment revenue in the quarter, grew over 35 percent, and our global debt advisory revenue grew approximately 70 percent.

Karen: The U.S. and Asia Pacific perform notably better than their respective market sales activity recorded by JLL Research, driven in part by our leading platform technology and people.

Karen: The capital markets adjusted EBITDA growth for the quarter and the full year was predominantly driven by higher transactional revenues and continued cost discipline.

Karen: The full-year adjusted EBITDA growth was partially offset by a nearly $20 million adverse impact from the repurchase of a Fannie Mae loan in August and a $5 million non-cash increase in loan loss credit reserves.

Karen: Looking ahead, we are encouraged by the strengthening of the real estate debt market.

Karen: Banks more actively quoting on and closing loans in the U.S., and the general stability reflected in our proprietary Bid Intensity Index.

Karen: Our Global Investment Sales Debt and Equity Advisory Pipeline is robust, so the evolution of the interest rate and economic outlook will continue to influence the timing and pace of deal closing.

Karen: Moving next to work dynamics. Revenue growth for the quarter in the year was led by workplace management.

Karen: stemming from both new client wins and mandate expansion as well as incremental pass-through costs in the U.S.

Karen: The near 30% growth on a two-year stacked basis and workplace management revenue in the quarter reflects our differentiated platform capabilities.

Karen: Project management revenue growth accelerated in the quarter and was broad-based across most geographies, as higher pass-through costs augmented the near 10% growth in management fees, largely from new wins and an increase in existing client volumes.

Karen: For the year, project management growth was attributable to higher pass-through costs and mid-single-digit management fee growth.

Karen: The work dynamics adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was flat, as the revenue growth was offset by a lower actuarial benefit associated with U.S. medical self-insurance.

Karen: and incremental investments in our platform, including technology and artificial intelligence capabilities, which we believe will support long-term growth and margin expansion.

Karen: Looking at the full year, the margin expanded for the third consecutive year, driven by revenue growth and platform scale, which more than offset the fourth quarter items and an elevated gross receipt tax expense in the third quarter.

Karen: Entering 2025, we expect workplace management growth to moderate as we lap the meaningful new winds which onboard is in 2024. We remain confident in the long term trajectory of the workplace management business, as our sales pipeline is strong, and we are focused on capturing mandate expansion opportunities.

Karen: Looking at project management, the recovery and leasing activity bodes well for securing additional mandates, though the current level of corporate capex spending may dampen near-term growth rates.

Karen: We continue to align technology investments to drive superior client outcomes and platform scaling to enable further margin expansion.

Karen: Turning to JLL Technologies, continued growth in software services revenue was more than offset by lower technology solutions bookings over the past year, which drove the segment revenue decline for both the quarter and the full year.

Karen: The lower revenue and impact of the year-over-year change in carried interest drove the adjusted EBITDA decline.

Karen: We are progressing to sustained profitability within this segment as we balance investments to drive growth.

Karen: Now to LaSalle. Higher incentive fees on asset dispositions on behalf of clients drove the revenue increase in the quarter.

Karen: Advisory fees declined in the quarter and for the full year on the impact of lower fees in Europe from the structural changes to a lower margin business we discussed in previous quarters, as well as lower assets under management over the past 12 months.

Karen: Absent foreign currency exchange movements, assets under management are down 3% from a year earlier, half of which was from lower valuations.

Karen: The increase in LaSalle's adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was driven by the higher incentives net of related variable compensation expense.

Karen: Though muted compared to normalized levels, full-year capital raising and deployment was higher than the prior year, and investor interest continues to pick up, particularly for credit and core products.

Karen: While we see momentum and deployment opportunities adding to assets under management over the course of the year, foreign currency and recent asset dispositions are notable near-term headwinds.

Karen: Turning to free cash flow. The increase in the quarter and full year was largely due to improvement in net reimbursables and higher cash earnings from improved business performance.

as well as greater incentive compensation accruals.

Karen: Higher receivables attributable to business growth with a partial offset for both the quarter and full year.

Karen: An increase in cash taxes and the repurchase of a loan from Fannie Mae in the third quarter were also partial offsets for the full year free cash flow.

Karen: There is a portfolio of loans to a single borrower that is currently in default with confirmed borrower fraud. We have begun discussions with Fannie Mae on next steps and resolution of the situation.

Shifting to our balance sheet and capital allocations.

Karen: Liquidity totaled $3.6 billion at the end of the fourth quarter, including $3.2 billion of undrawn credit facility capacity.

Karen: In addition, we had $2.3 billion of untapped capacity on our commercial paper program.

As of December 31st, reported net leverage was 0.7 times.

Karen: down from 1.2 times the year earlier due to both a reduction in net debt and higher adjusted EBITDA over the trailing 12 months.

Karen: We expect a typical seasonal increase in leverage in the first quarter, driven in part by annual incentive compensation payments, as well as the $100 million incremental growth investment in JLL Income Property Trust that we announced last quarter and subsequently made in January.

Christian Ulbrich: As Christian mentioned, we deployed capital over the course of 2024 to further differentiate our platform and capabilities while also returning capital to shareholders and reducing leverage.

Christian Ulbrich: Regarding our 2025 full-year financial outlook, we are optimistic for a continued pickup in transaction activity, though the pace may be uneven and nuanced across geographies.

Christian Ulbrich: Growth and our more resilient business lines collectively remain solid, driven by a vast market opportunity and the uniqueness of JLL's data-driven and globally scaled platform capabilities.

Christian Ulbrich: As we continue to invest to both capture future growth opportunities and drive operating leverage, we are targeting a full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA range of $1.25 billion to $1.45 billion, reflective of 14% growth at the midpoint.

Christian Ulbrich: Our outlook reflects typical seasonality and includes the notable strengthening of the U.S. dollar as around 40% of revenues are generated outside the United States.

Christian Ulbrich: We continue to see significant opportunities to drive growth and enhance the resiliency and efficiency of our business.

Christian Ulbrich: Positioning our team to leverage our platform to deliver exceptional service to our clients.

Christian, back to you.

Christian Ulbrich: Thank you, Karen. The year has started with strong momentum across our businesses.

Speaker Change: Our workplace management business has significant growth opportunity as clients are attracted to our differentiated global platform.

Speaker Change: Our leasing business is benefiting from the increasing return to office mandates. Due to the very low development pipeline, rents will continue to grow.

Speaker Change: While we are seeing increases in government bond yields and more tempered outlooks for rate cuts, particularly in the US, we encourage that bidding activity remains stable within our capital markets business.

Speaker Change: We see this outlook reflected in JLL's proprietary Global Bit Intensity Index, which held firm in the false border.

Speaker Change: Before I close the call, I want to give an update on the realignment of our business segments that went into effect on January 1st.

Speaker Change: As we announced last quarter, we are bringing together all our building management groups under one reporting structure named Real Estate Management Services.

Speaker Change: With this shift, markets advisory will be reported as meeting advisory.

Speaker Change: These changes will capitalize on synergies across platform operations and improve the client experience.

Speaker Change: Concurrently, capital markets will be reported as capital market services, LaSalle as investment management, and JLL Technologies as software and technology solutions.

Speaker Change: While this does not change the respective reporting structure, we believe the new names provide a better description of the breadth of our diversified products and services.

Speaker Change: We are optimistic about our ability to lead JLL to an even better future.

Speaker Change: I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank all our colleagues around the world whose hard work and tenacity ensure we continue to deliver for our clients.

Speaker Change: I look forward to what we can achieve together in 2025.

Operator, please explain the Q&A process.

Speaker Change: At this time, if you would like to ask a question, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Our first question will come from the line of Stephen Sheldon with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Maybe starting here, can you just talk roughly about what you're baking in for the high end versus the low end of the EBITDA guidance range, especially within the more transactional businesses?

Speaker Change: Sure, good morning. First, as I talk about the adjusted EBITDA target range broadly, I do want to highlight just a couple of things to amplify some points that I said in my prepared remarks.

Speaker Change: First, just a reminder of the typical seasonality in our business.

Speaker Change: And we don't expect any meaningful departure from the historical averages that we've experienced. So if you think about the profit contribution by quarter, the first quarter is average low teens profit contribution compared with the fourth quarter around 40%. So that's one point.

Speaker Change: Second point I want to note is really the impact of the strengthening dollar and our financial results overall with 40% of our revenues coming from outside the U.S.

Speaker Change: So then getting to the more specifics around your question, I'll start with the midpoint of the range and just our key assumptions for that.

Speaker Change: It's really anchored in the assumption of a gradual recovery path for the transactional business lines.

Speaker Change: So we assume the current interest rate environment, current consensus GDP outlet, current pace based on our pipelines and market momentum today.

Speaker Change: And then if you think about what will bring us to the higher or the lower end of the range, it will really be determined by a slower, slower or faster recover that we're anticipating at that midpoint based on the market conditions at this point in time.

Speaker Change: And another thing to call out in our modeling as we look at how the pace of the recovery takes hold over different geographies around the world, that's typically uneven.

Speaker Change: in this type of environment. And so we expect that will play out somewhat unevenly globally as well. And so the ultimate business mix can skew some of those growth rates and kind of where we end up in that range as well.

Got it. That's really helpful.

Speaker Change: and maybe wanted to ask about incremental margins just as we think about.

Speaker Change: Markets Advisory, I guess Leasing Advisory now, and Capital Markets in 2025.

Speaker Change: I know you kind of call that higher incentive comp, I think, in 4Q, there's some one-off items like continued loan losses within the portfolio, I think that you mentioned, Karen, and it could be some higher spending on recruiting and retaining producers that maybe could also weigh on incremental margins.

Speaker Change: Yeah, great question. Let me call out some of the one-off items and how we think about what happened in 2024 and then how that would translate or might translate in 2025.

Speaker Change: So first for, and also I would say we would really encourage everyone to look at the incremental margins on a full year basis. There can be a fair amount of noise or distortion in an individual quarter.

Speaker Change: Alright, again, due to one off items and just timing of revenue versus expenses and we plan our business on a longer term horizon than just the quarter.

Speaker Change: So a couple of things to call out from kind of one-time things that influenced even a one-year look. Within markets advisory, we had a higher-than-average incremental margin in that business. We did take the benefit in the year of a lot of cost-out actions that

Speaker Change: and cost discipline that really materialized in that business. So that coupled with strong growth really drove

Speaker Change: exceptionally high incremental margins in markets advisory. And we expect that to moderate to something closer to what we've experienced historically. Within capital markets, the one-time item there to call out in 2024

Speaker Change: was really around the expenses associated with the Fannie Mae loan repurchase, which then depressed the incremental margins a bit below the historical range that we've experienced.

within Work Dynamics.

Speaker Change: There, we had a couple of items over the course of the year that impacted the incremental margins.

Speaker Change: One was the item I called out in the fourth quarter, which was year-over-year changes in the actuarial benefit associated with our U.S. medical self-insurance. It was about $13 million, year-over-year difference. And then last quarter, we talked about $10 million gross receipts tax impact. So a couple of things in work dynamics.

in 2024.

that brought it down a bit. So

Speaker Change: That's there were a number of things moving around there always will be some level of one-time items But that hopefully will help provide some more context for how we think about where we came out in 2024 relative to historical averages

And we are, you know, constantly evaluating.

Speaker Change: Those incremental margins and trying to find the right balance of making sure we're continuing to invest for the future for future growth. It's really important that we're continuing to invest in our platform. So that as we go forward, we can generate the same strong growth momentum across these business lines that we've experienced in the year.

Speaker Change: Got it. Thank you, Karen. That's really helpful. Maybe just a last one for Christian. You continue to sound incrementally more.

Speaker Change: Excited, I think, about what JLL is doing from an AI perspective, so, you know, you kind of gave a little bit of commentary, but we'd just love to get more detail on how usage and utilization of some of the AI solutions you've rolled out within Falcon, how that's been trending.

Speaker Change: Where do you see the biggest opportunities that could be kind of needle moving as we think about areas to increase productivity or efficiency for your teams? How are you thinking about it?

Show up!

Speaker Change: There are literally no limitations on ideas at the moment, how we can make use of AI to the benefit of our clients and to increase productivity within our platform. And so the main task is to stay really disciplined and focus on those areas where there is the biggest impact and

What we are generally seeing is that

This whole opportunity around using AI is

forcing all our businesses

Speaker Change: to really focus on how they can align on how we execute the business.

and and once you have aligned on the steps

Speaker Change: that provides you with a great opportunity to send some of those processes into one of our business centers.

Speaker Change: And then from then on, usually you can start to using AI to really make massive productivity gains. So this will be with us now.

Speaker Change: for the future. The train has left the station and we are really excited about the productivity gains we can achieve and the increased level of services towards our clients.

Good to hear. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from the line of Nick Joseph with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Sure. Good morning. Let me talk a little bit about

Speaker Change: And I'll touch on office as well as industrial because it's an important part of the stories we think about.

Speaker Change: The Outlook for our leasing revenues overall and first I just want to start by saying we're really pleased with the results that we experienced in our leasing business both in the quarter and for the full year.

So starting with office

Speaker Change: Globally, office leasing was at its highest level since 2019. It's still below the 2019 levels, but that's quite encouraging as we think about all that's transpired since.

Speaker Change: 2020. And then importantly, in the US, the fourth quarter marked the first quarter of positive absorption since the fourth quarter of 2021. So a couple of, you know, bright spots to call out there.

Speaker Change: One of the things we think about as we look at our forecast for office leasing and what's going to happen in terms of

Positive Absorption versus Continued Downsizing.

Speaker Change: Our research team estimates that the U.S. office leasing market is now approximately 80% of the way through the downsizing cycle that has been going on and approximately 30% of leasing activity is now new space requirements, so either expansions or net new demand on top of that.

what existed before.

Speaker Change: So that's very encouraging. And then I'd say a final point is in the US, our research team tracks activity for deals over 100,000 square feet. And we talked about that in the past.

Speaker Change: that continue to prove in the quarter as well. It's up about 25% quarter over quarter. And again, there I'd still call out that it's about 30% below pre-pandemic levels.

Speaker Change: going to the industrial side of things, it's a bit of a different story.

Speaker Change: We have a market that has experienced further declines last year in 2024.

Speaker Change: We have occupiers who are focusing on increasing utilization of their existing space, they're delaying decision making, particularly in the US, there's still some excess capacity that builds up during the pandemic.

Speaker Change: that's being worked through. All that being said, we do expect the markets for industrial leasing to stabilize during 2025. Where we're seeing today, the demand is remaining really in line with pre-pandemic averages, and we see some

optimism for

for Further Growth.

Speaker Change: So taking those two together, if you think about that market context, and we look at our pipelines, we do expect continued growth momentum in leasing, but will be more gradual over the course of 2025. We're not forecasting a hockey stick scenario to come through based on what we're seeing today.

Speaker Change: And then you had asked a couple of questions about specific markets in the U.S.

Speaker Change: There, I would just call out the markets with the greatest growth in office leasing are New York and the surrounding areas.

Unknown Speaker . . . . .

Speaker Change: Kansas City, San Antonio, and Los Angeles, and San Francisco. So, you know, an interesting list of different markets there. But again, we're seeing some good momentum across both gateways and second, gateway cities and secondary markets in the US.

Speaker Change: Thank you. That was very helpful. And then just in terms of the free cash flow that's being generated, how are you thinking about, you know, either additional share repurchases versus executing on M&A?

Let me, Christian, I'm taking that question.

performance in the business and what we are seeing.

in the near future. We are currently in a still

Speaker Change: a very volatile environment. On the one hand, we see some very strong dynamics for the real estate industry, and we're probably at the beginning of a longer term upwick cycle. But on the other hand, the geopolitical environment, the trade environment is bringing a bit of uncertainty. And then we match the opportunity of share repurchases

obviously against other areas of

valuable investment for our shareholders, whether it's within our platform.

Over there, it's with regards to M&A.

Speaker Change: I can assure you that we are always intending to offset at least any kind of dilution from our share compensation.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Pelloni with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Anthony Pelloni: Great, thank you. My first question is I'd like to go back to the margin discussion and can you give us a sense as to, at the midpoint, perhaps, of your EBITDA guidance, whether you see margin expansion versus

Anthony Pelloni: 2024 or not, and also maybe how that fits into some of the brackets you would put forth in previous calls around where you see margins for the company longer term.

Anthony Pelloni: Morning, Tony. So yes, we do anticipate in our forecasting margin expansion on a consolidated basis and also across each of our business lines.

Anthony Pelloni: and then where we end up in terms of the full year and that adjusted EBITDA range will depend on a number of factors depending on how the shape of the revenues go over the course of the year and how that matches up with our expenses. As I mentioned earlier, we certainly have a significant portion of our profits in the back half of the year, particularly the fourth quarter.

and so we'll be managing the business accordingly.

Speaker Change: Okay, and do you still see those prior margin targets as as being?

Anthony Pelloni: you know, valid and we should we should still still think about that as where you want to be over time. Yeah, yeah, there's no change to that.

Anthony Pelloni: Okay, and then in work dynamics, I mean you talked about the the tougher comps given some of the wins that that hit in 2024 but you know if we think about

Speaker Change: top line fee revenue growth for that segment. Is it still likely a double digit grower? Does that settle into mid single digits? Like just any more context around that?

Speaker Change: Well, listen, I think we after this unusual year 2023, where the win rate was was very, very high, we are going now back to a more normalized environment, which means we are going back on that trajectory that we are expecting high single digit, low double digit top line growth in that business.

Speaker Change: The overall sentiment, and that is for the very long term around that business is still very positive.

Speaker Change: Okay and then last one for me here, Christian you mentioned number one priority is to just invest in the business. Can you maybe give us a sense as to your thinking as to where you see the most opportunity to invest in improved growth versus areas that might just be running kind of along on their own at this point?

Well, I mean, we have

often stated that we are interested to increase the

Speaker Change: recurring part of our business, so our work dynamics business, our property management business, and the other elements of the very sticky parts of our business.

is something we are really looking to grow.

fast and invest heavily into it.

The other part is clearly around technology.

Speaker Change: talking earlier about the AI opportunities, where we see strong return rates due to the increased productivity.

Speaker Change: But clearly, all areas of our business are constantly taking additional investment.

Speaker Change: and building that scale, which drives them to the bottom line is also true for our capital markets in our leasing advisory business.

Speaker Change: We still have tremendous room to grow even in markets like the U.S., but then you can also go into other geographies where there is still an opportunity to take significant market share.

Okay, thank you.

Speaker Change: Our next question comes from the line of Julian Blouin at Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Thank you for taking my question. I guess when we think about the capital markets commentary that you gave, Karen, you said, you know, the pipeline remains strong. I guess, can you give us a sense of how capital markets activity has trended in what you're seeing so far in 25 versus the really strong

Speaker Change: you know, fourth quarter we saw. And then, cadence-wise, should we think about sort of a slower second half, 25, as sort of the comps in the back half of the year get tougher?

Speaker Change: Well, first of all, in the first couple of weeks, in 25, we saw a really strong start to our capital markets business year over year. And if interest rates are staying

Speaker Change: more or less in line where they are today. We expect that trend to be pretty stable for the rest of the year. So to your second part of the question, not really. We don't expect that that trend is coming down in the second half of the year.

Speaker Change: If the situation stays more or less in line what we're having at the beginning of the year. As you know, we are still coming from a fairly low base.

Speaker Change: So those increases which you have seen in 2024 are against a fairly low base. So we still have quite a bit to grow in that in the transaction volumes overall to get back to levels which we have seen in 18 and 19.

Speaker Change: Okay, thank you Christian And I guess thinking about the really impressive sort of industrial leasing results, which which

Speaker Change: we're obviously well above market. Do you think these market share gains are sustainable into 25 on sort of the industrial leasing side? What is sort of driving that? And then at a high level, how should we think about sort of industrial leasing over the course of the year?

Yeah, I'll take that one

Speaker Change: In terms of what's really driving our outperformance relative to the overall market, one of the things we look at is a mix of transaction sizes that are occurring. And there has been a

Speaker Change: Return and industrial just as I've been talking about an office of larger transaction sizes where we tend to Play well and have a larger share of our business. So that's certainly

Speaker Change: kind of contributing to it. We also have been right continuing to build and think about the shape of our industrial leasing teams over time and investing where we see

Speaker Change: Opportunity growth opportunities going forward so it's a big area of focus for us as we continue and and as I mentioned right that my remarks the softness industrial leasing is really

Speaker Change: It's a shorter term thing in the midterm and long term, we still continue to believe that the industrial outlook will remain strong and generate activity in the future.

Great. Thank you so much.

Speaker Change: Again to ask a question press star one on your telephone keypad and we'll take our next question from the line of Jade Ramani at KBW. Please go ahead.

Jade Ramani: Thank you very much. On the office side, are you starting to see the recovery become more widespread? So far, it seems to be, you know, narrowly focused in the Class A, Class A plus buildings.

Speaker Change: You know, you did cite the strength in New York City, for example.

Speaker Change: you know, some of those, the Park Avenue corridor as a, you know, bellwether example, but curious if you're seeing spillover into adjacencies and the recovery becoming more widespread.

Speaker Change: Well, as we have stated before, the assets lie to quality.

Speaker Change: And so on that basis, it is clearly the grade A building, the A-class buildings, which are taking the biggest benefit. And I was just returning from Tokyo where...

Speaker Change: It's very interesting to see in a very vast office market, they are only having 254 buildings which are actually grade A, and within those buildings, there's literally no vacancy left.

Speaker Change: Still, it could happen, despite what we just said, that there's a flight to quality, that you see some spillover now moving into more Grade B buildings, because there is way too little new development coming into market.

Speaker Change: and so there will be an opportunity for some of the great B buildings to get

Speaker Change: a sufficient upgrade, and then those buildings will also be leased again at better levels than we currently see. But in most cases, that needs an upgrade of those buildings, which will actually help our project management business going forward.

And is that something you anticipate taking place?

Speaker Change: Because we have a lot of office deals that are kind of in standstill where, you know, the lender is contemplating taking the collateral where the sponsor or owner doesn't have the money to put in or interest rates are, you know, prohibitive. So, are you actually starting to see opportunities emerge in those Grade B buildings?

Speaker Change: Yes, we do. But you are describing obviously still the aftermath of the crisis we are coming out where there is still many buildings are still kind of in a slightly uncertain environment.

Speaker Change: because of the reasons you described. They may be sitting with a lender or they may be sitting with a sponsor who isn't willing or unable to put in more CAPEX into the building.

Speaker Change: But, you know, more and more of those situations are being sorted out. And then we also see some of the opportunistic players taking advantage of those opportunities now. And the statistics around the lack of new development coming to market are pretty transparent.

Speaker Change: and so for those who have the availability to to play that that curve it seems to be a pretty good opportunity to enter that market now.

Speaker Change: Thank you. And then turning to JLL Technologies, the software and technology solutions business.

What are your expectations for profitability going forward?

Speaker Change: is the business on a run rate basis currently profitable and also if you could touch on, you know, what drove the write downs during the quarter.

Okay well

We are obviously pretty eager to bring that business.

into profitability on a full year basis.

We have to balance that.

Speaker Change: that trajectory was investing into the platform, seeing specific growth areas, but at the same time don't lose sight of bringing it back into profitability. We are clearly determined that on a full year basis in 2026.

Investments.

Speaker Change: though mainly concentrated in one company. And then on the other hand, we had a couple of other companies where we were able to account for gains, but there weren't enough to offset the write down, especially in that one company.

but just.

Unknown Speaker

As a reminder, our project portfolio.

Speaker Change: is playing a pivotal role in our technology strategy by creating a portfolio of best-in-class technology products.

Speaker Change: our core business with cutting-edge technology, and it delivers superior technology to clients. So, we are not overly disturbed by those variances on the equity side, talking about the gains and some losses.

Speaker Change: Overall, we are quite happy with what we are learning from that portfolio and what outcomes we can achieve for our clients and for our own platform.

Thank you very much.

Speaker Change: And that will conclude our question and answer session and I'll now turn the call back over to Christian Ulbrich for closing remarks.

Speaker Change: Thank you, operator. With no further questions, we will close today's call. On behalf of the entire JLL team, we thank you all for participating on the call today. Karen and I look forward to speaking with you again following the first quarter.

Speaker Change: This will conclude today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

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