Duncan Palmer
Analyst · Vikram Malhotra from Morgan Stanley
Thanks Brett and good afternoon everyone. To start, let's turn to page eight, which summarizes our key financial data for the third quarter and year-to-date. We reported year-over-year fee revenue growth of 4% and 9% for the third quarter and year-to-date periods. We generated solid growth across each of our three segments, led by our PM/FM service line. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $169 million was down $11 million or 5% from the prior year, primarily due to results in EMEA. Year-to-date adjusted EBITDA of $431 million was up $8 million or 3% from the same period in 2018, driven by improvement in APAC and the Americas. A reminder that we saw unusual strength in the third quarter of 2018 with 32% growth in leasing and 34% growth in capital markets, leading to a 77% growth in EBITDA for that period. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the third quarter and year-to-date was 10.9% and 9.6%, respectively. Our adjusted EBITDA margin performance for the third quarter and year-to-date reflects the impact of a very strong third quarter in 2018, broker investments made in the second half of 2018 and a modest shift in revenue towards property facilities and project management, which we call PM/FM. Generally, PM/FM is lower margin than our brokerage service lines. In addition, as you may recall, we made investments in the second half of 2018 in broker recruitment in the Americas, which, as we mentioned on the last call, are ramping up and are expected to contribute in the fourth quarter. Third quarter adjusted earnings per share was $0.37 and year-to-date adjusted earnings per share was $0.87. Moving on to pages nine and 10 where we show fee revenue growth rates by segment and by service line. All three segments grew in the third quarter with Americas up 3%, EMEA up 4% and APAC up 7%, bringing their year-to-date growth rate to 8%, 11% and 14%, respectively. In the third quarter, growth was particularly strong in our valuation and other and PM/FM service lines, up 17% and 12%, respectively. PM/FM was up double-digits in our Americas and EMEA segments. As mentioned, this growth, including the acquisition of QSI, represents a modest revenue shift to PM/FM this year. We continue to be pleased with the performance of QSI this year. Within PM/FM, facility services represents a significant portion of this service line's fee revenue. In facility services, we typically self-perform or self-contract a variety of services through our major operations in both the Americas and APAC. This business generates solid cash flow on a stable revenue stream, and on an annualized basis typically has low single-digit growth. Fee revenue growth in facility services was in the mid to high single-digits for both the quarter and year-to-date. The rest of our PM/FM service line, which comprises of occupier outsourcing, property management and project management operations, grew at double-digit rate in all three segments for both the quarter and year-to-date. With that, we will start a more detailed review of our segments, starting with the Americas on page 11. Third quarter fee revenue increased 3% and year-to-date revenue increased 8%. Our growth was driven by PM/FM, which was up 13% for the quarter and 14% year-to-date, and valuation and other, which was up 35% for the quarter and 11% year-to-date. Within our Americas PM/FM service line, our facility services operations represent a little over half of our fee revenue. Facility services fee revenue was up high single-digits for the quarter and year-to-date, driven by growth at existing clients and new business wins. The rest of the PM/FM service line grew at a double-digit rate. Our leasing business was down 9% for the quarter, but was up 3% for the year, and capital markets was up 2% for the quarter and was flat for the year. As we have discussed, we had a very strong third quarter last year in both leasing and capital markets. Year-to-date trends in leasing have been consistent with our expectations. While there was some growth in capital markets in the quarter, year-to-date growth has been modestly below where we had expected against a strong 2018 comparable. Americas Q3 adjusted EBITDA of $125 million was down 3%. Year-to-date adjusted EBITDA of $318 million was up 2%. Americas performance for the third quarter reflects the impact of a very strong third quarter in 2018. In addition, we experienced a modest shift in mix towards PM/FM, driven by QSI and by the strong growth in facility services. Our investments made in the back half of 2018 in fee earner recruitment, which we discussed on last quarter's call, remain on track and are ramping up during 2019. We expect them to be accretive to EBITDA in the fourth quarter and to continue to ramp in 2020. Moving on to EMEA on page 12. Third quarter fee revenue increased 4% and year-to-date fee revenue was up 11%, driven by solid growth in our PM/FM and capital market service lines. Our PM/FM service line in EMEA represents less of our overall segment than in the other two regions, which grew 25% in the quarter and 28% year-to-date. Capital markets was up 10% for the quarter and 9% year-to-date. These trends were partially offset by leasing activity which was down 13% for the quarter and down 2% year-to-date. In 2018, our EMEA leasing business also experienced a very strong third quarter, growing 25%. These trends are consistent with our expectations and principally driven by the U.K. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $20 million, declined $9 million, versus the third quarter of 2018. Year-to-date adjusted EBITDA of $36 million was down $5 million versus the same period in 2018. Our performance in EMEA reflects the impact of a strong third quarter in 2018, slower leasing activity and unfavorable currency impact. We also experienced a mix shift in 2019, driven by growth in PM/FM. Now, for our Asia-Pacific segment on page 13. Growth continues to be strong with third quarter and year-to-date fee revenue up 7% and 14%, respectively. Valuation and other grew 29% in the third quarter and 19% year-to-date. Leasing grew 6% in the quarter and 9% year-to-date. Capital markets was down 9% in the quarter, but has grown 23% year-to-date. Finally, PM/FM grew 6% in the quarter and 13% year-to-date. PM/FM represents more than half of the fee revenue for the segment. Strong revenue performance across the region drove an 11% increase in adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter and 17% improvement year-to-date. Turning now to page 14. We are confirming our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $685 million to $735 million as well as our expectation of margin accretion for the full year. Consistent with what we have seen so far this year, we are anticipating global brokerage revenue growth in the low single-digits for the full year. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for the Q&A portion of today's call.