Jim Groch
Analyst · JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question
Thank you, Bob. As Bob noted, CBRE continued to produce great results in Q2. Let me start with a few highlights on Slide 5. First, capital markets revenue, which includes property sales and commercial mortgage services combined, generated 12% revenue growth. Second, our occupier outsourcing business continued to realize strong and steady fee revenue growth of 10% for the quarter, all of which was organic. Third, margins on fee revenue increased 70 basis points to 16.4% in our combined regional services businesses. Finally, we increased the pace of our M&A activity as more rational deal terms are returning to the market. Year-to-date, we closed four traditional infill acquisitions. In addition, we enhanced our market leading technology platform by acquiring two software-as-a-service companies and making an equity investment in a third. Please turn to Slide 6. CBRE produced solid, top line organic growth in Q2. Gross revenue and fee revenue increased by 7% and 6% respectively with virtually all of the growth being organic. Adjusted EBITDA grew 14% in U.S. dollars to $413 million, outpacing fee revenue growth on expanding margins. Adjusted earnings per share increased 25% in U.S. dollars to $0.65 for the quarter. Our adjusted tax rate improved to 27.2% in Q2 as we are taking steps to enhance the tax efficiency of our businesses and also realized a couple of one-time benefits in the quarter. The benefit of the improved tax rate is partially offset by increased depreciation and amortization, resulting in a net gain of $0.04 for the quarter. We now expect our full year adjusted tax rate to be approximately 29%. Slide 7 summarizes our three regional services businesses, which together produced a growth rate of 6% in fee revenue and 12% in adjusted EBITDA before FX impacts. As Bob mentioned in the regions, our performance this quarter was led by Asia-Pac and EMEA. Asia-Pac posted an 18% increase in fee revenue, with very strong growth in Australia, India, Japan and Singapore. EMEA fee revenue rose 13%, paced by significant gains in the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, where CBRE’s activity levels continue to rebound strongly from the impact of last year’s Brexit vote. We had a soft quarter in the Americas, with total fee revenue up 1%. A 15% increase in our occupier outsourcing business and a 9% increase in commercial mortgage services helped to offset relatively flat sales and a 6% decline in leasing revenues. Total adjusted EBITDA and operating leverage in the Americas were up modestly. This highlights the strength and diversification of our Americas business. Slide 8 reviews our major global lines of business in Q2. Property sales revenue rose 13%, paced by robust growth in Asia Pacific and EMEA, which grew 45% and 42%, respectively. Asia Pacific saw a strong growth across the region, especially in Greater China, Japan and Singapore. EMEA’s growth was led by the United Kingdom, where sales revenue surged 69%, as well as a broad range of countries, including France, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands. Americas sales revenue edged down 1%, due primarily to a decrease in Canada. Our U.S. sales revenue was up slightly compared with an 8% decrease in the broader investment market according to preliminary estimates from Real Capital Analytics. In Q2, our commercial mortgage services revenue increased by 10%. This business is more stable than property sales, due in part to the recurring revenue generated by our now $154 billion loan servicing portfolio, which is up 16% from Q2 of last year. Leasing revenue slipped 1% globally as growth of 10% in Asia-Pac and 12% in EMEA was offset by weakness in the Americas. Leasing growth was particularly strong in Australia, India, Japan, Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom. The decrease in the Americas was primarily attributable to Manhattan, where we closed few very large deals, which can be volatile quarter-to-quarter. The Manhattan leasing market remains relatively healthy, and we maintain the leading position in the New York market. Our valuation business achieved solid growth of 7%, fueled by double-digit growth in EMEA, while property management grew fee revenue by 4%. Please turn to Slide 9 regarding our occupier outsourcing business, which is reported within the three regional services segments. We continue to see steady growth in this business in Q2, with organic fee revenue up 10%. We experienced particularly strong growth in Canada, India, Mexico, Singapore and the United States. The execution of our strategy has created the industry’s premier outsourcing business and is built on the strength of our entire diversified and integrated client offering. This business has grown organically at double-digit annual rates for over a decade, which combined with strategic acquisitions, has enabled a more than 20-fold increase in revenue since 2006. We are pursuing and increasingly winning global, multi-service mandates from major corporations like Adient and Kimberly-Clark. I will expand on our new mandate from Kimberly-Clark, which while being one of many, illustrates CBRE’s differentiated capabilities. Our mandate is to provide transaction and project management services across Kimberly-Clark’s 65 million square foot portfolio of office, manufacturing, distribution and other facilities. For global clients like this, we might lease new offices for them in China, supervise construction in Continental Europe, dispose of surplus manufacturing facilities in Canada and materially reduce facility-related operating expenses globally. We can also provide strategic advice on critically important real estate decisions, such as helping them to optimize their global supply chain or to develop a plan to transform their use of office space to attract top talent. These are examples of our competitive advantages of scale, depth of offerings, broad expertise and ability to provide integrated solutions enabled by technology. Please turn to Slide 10 regarding our Global Investment Management segment. Equity commitment climbed to $9 billion over the past 12 months, reflecting continued strong performance for our clients. AUM in the second quarter rose to $91.7 billion from $88.6 billion a year ago. In local currency, AUM increased by $2.6 billion. Note that our AUM does not yet include the effect of our Caledon Capital acquisition, which we expect to close in the third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA declined 6% in Q2 before adjusting for hedging impacts. After adjusting for hedging, Q2 was flat and year-to-date increased 4%. Please turn to Slide 11 regarding our Development Services segment. This business continues to perform very well. Adjusted EBITDA contributions increased to $46.5 million from $18.5 million in Q2 ‘16. Year-to-date, adjusted EBITDA is almost flat to prior year. We maintain a robust sales pipeline and continue to expect significant gains in the second half. Fee-only projects constitute half of our $6 billion total pipeline. The realization of incentive income in our Development Services business can fluctuate in any given quarter, but the longer term performance has been outstanding. In addition, the business generates meaningful synergies with our services businesses. I should note that our Development Services business, Trammell Crow Company, was named the U.S. Developer of the Year last month by NAIOP, a testament to the quality of our people and operations. Please turn to Slide 12. I will conclude my remarks about the quarter with two brief comments. First, Q2 results again highlight the benefit of our globally diversified business mix. Strong organic growth in EMEA and Asia-Pacific as well as in global occupier outsourcing and capital markets more than offset a decline in transaction revenues in the Americas. This resulted in solid growth and operating leverage in our regional services businesses. Second point I want to make is the strength of the company’s balance sheet and free cash flow. Since acquiring Global Workplace Solutions for $1.5 billion less than 2 years ago, our leverage is essentially flat at 1.3x adjusted EBITDA. Now please to turn to Slide 13 for Bob’s closing remarks.