Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Jones Lang LaSalle, Incorporated's First Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. For your information, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Grace Chang, Managing Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to our first quarter 2017 conference call for Jones Lang LaSalle, Incorporated. Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings release which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website jll.com, along with a slide presentation intended to supplement our prepared remarks. During the call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures which we believe provide useful information for investors. We include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures where appropriate to GAAP in our earnings release and supplemental slides. As a reminder, today's call is being webcast live and recorded. A transcript of this conference call will also be posted on our website. Any statements made about future results and performance or about plans, expectations and objectives are forward-looking statements. Actual results and performance may differ from those forward-looking statements as a result of our factors discussed in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016, and in other reports filed with the SEC. The company disclaims any undertaking to publicly update or revise any forward-looking comment. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to Christian Ulbrich, our Chief Executive Officer, for opening remarks.

Thank you, Grace. And welcome to this review. As always, our CFO, Christie Kelly will join me on today's call, and she will provide details of our performance in a few minutes. To begin, I'll summarize our results. Though the first quarter tends to be the most quiet three months of the year, we recorded double-digit revenue growth across all the three regions. Revenue was up 21% to $1.6 billion, compared with the first quarter a year ago, and fee revenue also increased by 21% to $1.4 billion. Growth in revenue was led by strong leasing and capital markets contributions, particularly in the U.S. and UK. As we continue to integrate recent acquisitions, we also saw expansion of our Property & Facility Management and Project & Development Services businesses. Adjusted net income was $21 million for the quarter compared with $37 million a year ago. Adjusted diluted earnings per share totaled $0.45 compared with $0.82 for the same period in 2016. Organic margin accretion in our transactional businesses and in M&A completed before the first quarter of 2016, was offset by several issues. Anticipated declines in LaSalle's incentive and transaction fees, expenses related to the close of a non-core UK business, continued investment in technology and data and in our EMEA facility management platform, and provisions for account receivables collections, all contributed to lower profits. To put our numbers in context, let's look at global market conditions. In the first quarter, positive news about a range of leading economic indicators, particularly in manufacturing and trade data, prompted a broad upward shift in economic expectations for the year. For details, please see the slides posted in the Investor Relations section of jll.com. Slide 5 shows first quarter activity in Capital Markets & Leasing. Despite ongoing political uncertainty in many parts of the world, capital continues to seek investments in real estate, with $136 billion of global transactional volumes recorded in the quarter, roughly level with volumes recorded a year ago. Prime yields were unchanged in most major markets. Leasing activity remained firm during the quarter, as global leasing volumes increased 3% year-on-year. The global office vacancy rate remained stable at 11.9%. And rental growth for prime offices in 26 major markets rose to 3% in the quarter, up from 2.7% in the first (4:59) quarter of 2016. I would like to add that both our Capital Markets & Leasing revenues outperformed market volumes during the quarter. And finally, reflecting the strength of our finances, our board of directors declared a 6% increase in our semi-annual dividend to $0.35 per share. To comment on our performance in this market environment, I will turn the call over to Christie.

Thank you, Christian, and welcome to everyone on our call. Christian provided the headline summary of results, regarding revenues and earnings for the quarter. So, I will move directly to business line results. Revenue growth occurred across all geographic segments and reflected expansion of both transactional and annuity businesses with strong organic gains. Organic revenue expansion accounted for over 40% of Real Estate Services fee revenue growth, with the balance from acquisitions completed after the first quarter of 2016. Total JLL Leasing revenues grew 18% for the first quarter, reaching $375 million, significantly better than the modest 3% increase in global market gross absorption. JLL's double-digit growth and market outperformance in Leasing held true in all three of our geographic regions. Total JLL Capital Markets fee revenues grew 12% for the first quarter, reaching $194 million, also a strong performance compared to overall market statistics that indicate relatively flat investment sales in comparison to first quarter 2016. Our Property & Facility Management fee revenue grew 51% for the quarter, largely driven by the Integral UK acquisition. Projects & Development Services grew 19% for the quarter and Advisory & Consulting grew 27%. Combined, these non-transactional businesses drove 70% of the fee revenue growth in our Real Estate Services business. From a margin perspective, we have provided additional information on page 6 of our supplemental slides. Adjusted EBITDA margin calculated on a fee revenue basis was 5.4% for the quarter compared with 7.6% in the first quarter 2016, a decline of 220 basis points or 260 basis points on a constant currency basis. As Christian noted, we had positive organic accretion from our transactional businesses and from M&A completed before the first quarter 2016. This positive accretion was offset by the anticipated decline in LaSalle transaction fees and equity earnings, as well…

Thanks, Christie. To get a sense of how we achieved these first quarter results, slide 19 offers a few of our recent business wins across service lines and geographies. As noted in my opening remarks, our Capital Markets & Leasing business continues to record major new business wins. In our Corporate Services business, we won 38 new assignments during the quarter, expanded existing relationships with another 13 clients and renewed 16 contracts. These 67 wins totaled 180 million square feet across all regions and reflect an overall 68% win rate. LaSalle's assets under management totaled $58 billion at the end of the quarter, down 1% in local currency from year-end 2016 as dispositions and withdrawals outpaced acquisitions. LaSalle continues to deliver very healthy annuity fee income. Looking forward, global GDP is forecast to grow by 3.4% in 2017, up from 3% in 2016. Focusing on real estate markets, our researchers see real estate investments remaining attractive from a yield perspective this year, and also anticipate an improvement in the supply of investment stock, particularly in developed markets. So, we see investment transaction volumes remaining on par with 2016 levels or up to $650 billion. This will obviously work to the benefit of LaSalle Investment Management as well. We also predict that global leasing volumes will match 2016 levels, with momentum in the U.S. leading the way. So, as we look ahead, the combination of healthy market conditions and our own continued good prospects for new business give us confidence that we will meet the expectations we set for 2017 during our fourth quarter call. As Christy mentioned, these operating assumptions are repeated on page 8 of our current slides. Our ongoing investments in data and technology positions us to take advantage of our industry's digital transformation. The acquisitions we have…

And our first question comes from line of Mitch Germain from JMP Securities. Your line is now open.

Good morning, guys.

Hi there, Mitch.

How are you?

Hey, Mitch, how are you?

So it's been a couple quarters now. Just was curious about the integration of Integral in particular?

Hi, Mitch. How are you?

I'm Great. Thank you.

Well, so far it's going really well. They have come in on the quarter almost precisely on the budget we have set out when we acquired them. We have accelerated a little bit our investment into technology on Integral, but we are so far very happy. They don't seem to be impacted by the challenges with that whole political situation around the Brexit is offering to the wider UK, their business is continuing unaffected by that. So we have high hopes that we continue to deliver what we expected when we acquired the company.

Great. Thank you for that.

And Mitch...

Go ahead, please.

The only thing I would add too is just from a cultural perspective, we couldn't be more pleased with the fit with the business. They're really doing exceedingly well.

Did they bring on a number of new customers for you guys to cross-sell to?

Yes. Cross-sell is going well and the team's working hard on mapping that out as we move forward in 2017 and beyond.

Great. I know one of you competitors had talked about M&A pricing coming back in and becoming a little more in line with kind of reasonable levels. I'm curious if that's something similar to what you're seeing as well?

Yeah. Indeed that is happening. I wouldn't say it's happening to a degree that it's becoming now a massive opportunity to jump on M&A, but we see pricing coming in a little bit, which is good. It has gone a little bit too far out before, but that won't change really our approach to M&A going forward. We are very, very selective for the time being because we have done a lot in the past and we still have to fully take advantage of these acquisitions. So as you have seen in the first quarter, we have been quite slow on doing further M&A.

Great. And then last one for me, Christie, just want to talk about the margin in EMEA. So I think you referenced $12 million. I'm trying to understand how much of that $12 million represents items that are kind of new versus what you've always been doing with regards to tech investment and other items in that region. So, kind of I'm just trying to understand really what created the decline quarter-over-quarter for the most part.

Sure, Mitch. I think probably the best way to think about it is a 50-50 split just in terms of the incremental losses associated with the closing of a non-core business and then specifically just some timing-related delays in revenue, primarily in our IFM platform together with collections.

And should we think about the capital markets revenue that was somewhat delayed – in the first quarter, should we think about a bigger-than-expected lift in the second quarter from the closings?

I think you can think about the EMEA business as they rebound in profitability.

That's helpful. Thank you, guys. Great quarter. Well done.

Thanks.

Thanks, Mitch.

Thanks, Mitch.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Jade Rahmani from KBW. Your line is now open.

Hi, Jade. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thanks very much. Hi. How are you?

Good. How are you doing? Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: I'm great. Wanted to ask about the non-core business you're exiting. Just can you provide any color on where that is and what business it's in – what business line, and if there're other identified businesses that are underperforming that you might look at exiting or selling?

No. That is a very specification situation, which we have in the UK. It's in the area of our Project & Development Services. We are not exiting that business overall. We are exiting a specific part of that business in a specific geography, and that has been going on over the last couple of months. But obviously, that business delivers the service, which goes on over a relatively long period until you finish an assignment, and so we are still closing down a couple of assignments that should take a couple of more months and then we are done with it. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Any other businesses you might look to monetize?

No. Not for the time being. So far we are very happy with the services we're providing, but we're constantly kind of looking at the outlook for some of this, some of our services. Obviously, the whole processes of digitization, which is taking place, will have impact on some of our business. So we will be constantly on the watch what will happen to some of these services. But so far, we are fine. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: The press release noted 11% organic fee revenue growth, and your 2017 operating assumptions are 8% to 11% total fee revenue growth. I was wondering if you could give your organic fee revenue growth expectation for the year.

You know, Jade, just from the perspective of moving forward, I think, you can think of that as more of the same. We've isolated the growth associated with M&A transactions done since the first quarter 2016 versus the transactions that we had done previous to that point, which are now nicely integrating into our core business and driving a healthy organic growth. So I would think of it as more of the same. We've got healthy M&A performance and we've got healthy organic growth thanks to the mid-cycle acquisitions that we completed over the past three years. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: And can you just comment on how head count grew year-over-year and in particular in the capital markets and leasing?

Sure, Jade. Specifically, we're always looking for talented people. We've been able to attract the best in the industry. We're extremely selective. And to that point, we are selectively investing in both capital markets and leasing producers. We've seen in terms of head count as well as productivity, mid-single-digit, year-over-year improvement in both revenue per head as well as head count additions. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay. In capital markets, a lot of the market data has been choppy, and yet the top players, yourselves included, seems to be gaining market share. Can you comment on the current market dynamic, maybe give some color on the cadence of volumes through the quarter if you saw consistency or if you saw sequential improvement? And then just what do you think is driving the market share gains? Is it certainty of execution? And is it market shifts amongst the top players? Or really just from the smaller players.

That's a long question. I'll try to answer that. I would say overall the market is still very healthy. I mean we have an almost ideal environment to invest into real estate. Interest rates are incredibly low. The outlook for interest rates continue to be low. I mean when you look what happened to oil price over the last couple of days, they're coming in again very much. So the outlook for interest rates will continue to be attractive from that end. Now we saw that there was a bit of a hesitation with some investors at this point of the cycle. So it takes longer now to close deals than it did a year ago, but we think that is a healthy development because we rather want a healthy development which continues to be there for a couple of more years in this cycle than that things are going over the top. With regards to the question of market share wins, I think that's a general trend that the most professional companies with the best global footprint and the best access to investors are taking market share. Obviously, we very much enjoy that trend and we very much invest into that trend. I mean this has been a massive investment over many, many years to build that global footprint of the top professional capital markets people all around the globe who are always looking for new sources of capital and new parties to approach. And that is paying off. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: And does it feel to you that sequentially volumes improved, accelerated through the quarter, and I don't know if you can comment on April, but have you seen consistency in setting sort of a new transaction pace?

Yeah. We expect it to be very consistent. The only caveat I have to make is that election in France on Sunday, but if that doesn't go wrong, then there is no concern that this overall healthy trend for capital markets will not continue. And so it should be a normal year where the first quarter is the slowest quarter for capital markets and we are building more and more momentum and then we have again a peak transaction volume in the fourth quarter. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: And can you comment on the Oak Grove performance, the volume of originations and how that grew year-over-year?

Yeah. I mean, the Oak Grove performance has been outstanding. We are very, very happy with our new colleagues from Oak Grove, and we are building fast and we have strong ambitions to grow that business even further over the next couple of years. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Can you comment on the volume of originations and the year-over-year growth rate?

I leave that to Christie to give you the detailed numbers.

Sure, sure, Jade. Just in terms of overall volume, we were up close to 40% year-over-year with very nice performance by the team. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: And that flows through the capital markets and hotels business line?

That's correct, Jade. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Okay. Thanks very much.

Thanks, Jade.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Anthony Paolone from JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Nice quarter.

Hi there, Anthony.

Hi.

Thanks, Anthony.

Following up to one of I think Jade's questions. If I look at your fee revenue growth guidance for 2017 and I back out the first quarter now for 2017 and 2016, it suggests 6% to 7% top line growth for the rest of the year and you have that 11% organic in the first quarter. So just trying to understand what the gap is there, whether it's just too early to kind of get up over your skis and playing it safe, or you just had a particularly good mix in the first quarter? How do you work through that gap?

Sure, Anthony. I think the first quarter is really early in the year and it's really too soon to call. And as you know, we don't give guidance. We really were trying to give an outlook structure for the use of yourselves and also based on feedback from investors. But further to that, I would really look at it in terms of us trying to better level our quarterly performance as well. Because we had so much production in the fourth quarter, we're really trying to de-risk our production volume throughout the year. So my perspective is, as we have provided in the supplemental slides, is that we view that our expectations are in alignment with what we've provided and as Christian also noted.

Okay. And then we're four or five months into the year. Can you comment bigger picture on, within your outlook, where are you most surprised either positively or negatively in terms of what you're seeing on the ground either regionally or by business line?

We were obviously very, very happy with our business in China and India. There was a lot of debate around how China will do, and whether they will be able to continue their growth momentum, and I think they have probably surprised a lot of people in the world, how they were coming in the first three months in their overall GDP performance. And, we can see it in our business; our activities in China are really, really strong, people are upbeat. And the same applies to India. I don't know how closely you follow India, but they are really taking some important actions from the political side, and again that plays really well for the real estate sector in India. The other one which certainly was a bit of a positive surprise, not to me personally I have to say, but let's say to the wider perception, was the performance in the UK, because with all what's going on in the UK, and you could have thought that the UK would slowdown in the real estate performance, but they didn't. I mean we had a really strong start to the year and we hope that continues. Now we have the election coming up, let's see whether that will slow it a little bit down. But overall, that was a bit of a positive surprise.

Okay. Can you give us any color maybe even some numbers around retail leasing, given how topical it is, these days, how that's trending for you?

While Christie is looking for some numbers, I can just give you bit of the flavor and the flavor is that that it's becoming more and more difficult around retail leasing. And so what you see is that there is a focus on really the top quality shopping centers and the top high street locations, and whatever doesn't fit into that bucket is finding it difficult and we even see now the first markets where the top high street locations, rents are coming slightly in, which wasn't the case for all the previous years. But they were still going up and up and up. So, yeah, there is a structural change in the retail business going on, and that finds now probably for the first time more significantly its way into retail real estate.

Okay. Any comment on just the magnitude of retail leasing as a percentage of your overall leasing business to put that in perspective?

I don't have that at hand. Christie, do you have that at hand?

Anthony, just from the perspective of the retail markets. We're seeing nice performance in lifestyle centers, suburban is holding out, depending on the location as you can imagine and overall, from a development perspective, we're seeing very limited development pipelines, which in fact are supporting the U.S. market performance overall.

Okay. And then, last question. I think $5.3 million of incremental tax spending I think you highlighted in 1Q, is that just kind of the growth in the baseline of spending on technology, or is that something which you think of as that'll come out next year in 1Q?

I think, Anthony, you can think about that as a norm on the run-rate for the near-term, as we're really driving as part of Christian's strategy both the front-end client centricity tools together with the investments in our platform from an overall modernization perspective to really drive productivity for our future on behalf of our people and our shareholders.

Okay. Thank you.

You bet, Anthony.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Ridley-Lane from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open.

Thank you. So, relative to your expectations, how did the first quarter margin performance compare, and I'm wondering I guess if some of the wind down costs were contemplated or not (44:56).

Hi there David.

We were pretty happy with the first quarter.

And as Christian noted in his remarks, and as I also talked about, David, our performance was very much in line with expectations.

Got it. And then, we've heard anecdotally that kind of the bid/ask spread on current capital market sales has widened out a bit, I did hear you that the deals are taking longer to close now versus a year ago. Do you see any risk that the deals could fail to close in 2017 versus prior years?

There's absolutely no evidence so far. We have a very healthy situation. We have still a significant backlog of capital, which tries to get into great buildings and so we have a long list of bidders on each transaction we are doing for our clients, so no concerns at this point in time.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thanks David.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Brandon Dobell from William Blair. Your line is now open. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Thanks. Good morning everybody. Wanted to, I think, focus on your comments Christian or maybe it was Christie about corporate services wins and expansions in the quarter and get a sense for, I guess, let's call it the relative quality of those wins, so thinking about margins, duration of those deals relative to what you already have, just trying to get a sense of, if what your winning is making the business better and more predictable higher margin, is on par or if the quality of the wins and expansions is lower than what you have in the existing business? Thanks.

Hey there, Brandon. I'll start and then turn it over to Christian, but we're really pleased with the performance around the globe in our Corporate Solutions business and are seeing some really nice growth year-over-year, which is significantly focused on the investments that we've made over the past couple of years in the pipeline, a platform together with the acquisitions that we've done. And going forward view is that it is a really nice annuity based income stream that is absolutely counter cyclical. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Okay. And then I think, the growth in the advisory business was pretty strong this quarter, a couple of questions there. Over the longer period of time, should that track a particular service line, maybe it's capital markets, maybe it's one of the outsourcing businesses, is there a particular effort there to drive head count, to drive growth, just trying to get a better sense of how that business grows and why it grows?

Sure, Brandon. First, we've made some very strategic investments around the globe in our valuations capabilities, which we view are really the head of the spear in terms of providing insights and prospects to our business at large. And, specifically it's not a head count game, we're really looking to drive better productivity, digitization and information share in that businesses as we move forward. And then specifically, as it relates to talent on the advisory side of the business, we're very focused on really having the services to meet our client needs that are evolving going forward. And for that point, I'll turn it over to, Christian.

Yeah, I mean it is frankly almost the same as it is in our Corporate Solutions business, we are really going for value towards our clients. And so, the more clients are looking for real value which helps them to drive that productivity and to come to better outcome, the better for us, because those clients tend to turn to JLL. And the same applies to our advisory business, our valuation business, there are many offers out there to get a valuation for real estate, and you can get that very cheap in the market, but if you really want to get deep insight then people tend to turn to companies like us. And so that business is growing quite significantly, but obviously it is not such a market opportunity as our Corporate Solutions business because the people have received valuation services before, so whenever we grow it's a market share win, whereas in the Corporate Solutions business, you still have corporates who come to the market for the first time. So, that market in itself is growing quite significantly. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then, final one from me, maybe, Christie. As we think about the remaining three quarters of the year and the incremental, primarily technology spend that runs through the P&L, the cadence of that, I guess, relative to how this quarter look, or relative to how the operating cost last year looked, just trying to get a sense if there's going to be seasonality in that technology spend or particular quarter where it jumps up a lot. So, we've got our margin hats on correct. Thanks.

Sure, Brandon. I think you can think of it as more of the same. But, as it relates to... Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Okay.

...some of the investments that we're doing from a platform modernization perspective, those investments are going to build a little bit, as we're moving from design into various implementations. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Okay. Thanks.

You bet, Brandon.

And at this time, I'm showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Christian for any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. Well, if there are no further questions, we will end today's call. Thank you for joining Christie and me and for your continued interest in JLL. And we look forward to talking again following the second quarter. All the best to you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day. And speakers please standby.