Mike Rispoli
Analyst · Piper Sandler. Please go ahead
Thank you, Barry, and good morning. Commercial real estate services industry and certain of Newmark’s businesses were adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in the fourth quarter and full year 2020, which resulted in lower transaction-related activity. Our revenues declined 4.9% to $601.4 million. Capital markets revenues increased by 15.3%, led by investment sales. Our investment sales business gained 192 basis points of market share in 2020. Gains from mortgage banking increased 103.2%. Overall, Newmark’s GSE market share increased by 83 basis points in 2020. Management services, servicing fees and other rose 3.7%, driven by higher Valuation & Advisory fees and pass-through revenues. These recurring revenues represented 33% of our total in 2020, up from 28% in 2019, as we continue our focus on growth. Our leasing revenues declined 45%. This was largely a result of our significant presence in large urban markets, such as New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. We anticipating leasing will remain challenged, until there's greater clarity around the return to the workplace. But, we believe that demand will accelerate in these markets as the pandemic subsides. Moving on to expenses. Total expenses decreased in the quarter, reflecting lower conditions and other operating expenses due to cost savings initiatives. These declines were partially offset by increases related to the quarterly timing of recruiting costs and higher pass-through expenses. For 2020, our expenses declined 12.2%, reflecting lower variable compensation, and the Company's cost savings initiatives. These actions will result in approximately $60 million of permanent savings in 2021. The Company is planning to further reduce its expense base by $15 million by the end of 2021, resulting in total permanent savings of $75 million or 10.5% of our pre-pandemic expense base. Turning to earnings. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.30, down 43.4%; and adjusted EBITDA was $112.9 million, down 34.3%. Moving on to the balance sheet. Newmark generated $112.4 million of cash flow from operations in the fourth quarter and repaid $200 million on a revolving credit facility. We maintained strong liquidity and credit metrics. As of December 31st, we had $191.4 million of cash and cash equivalents and $325 million of availability on our revolver. Our net leverage ratio was 1.4 times at year-end. Our balance sheet does not yet reflect the NASDAQ earn-out. On February 2nd, NASDAQ announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to sell its U.S. fixed income business. The closing will accelerate Newmark’s receipt of NASDAQ shares, a portion of which will be used to offset the remaining balance from the Company's 2018 monetization transaction. On a net basis, Newmark estimates that it will retain approximately 5 million shares of NASDAQ stock worth $723.5 million as of yesterday's closing price. If as expected the earn-out is accelerated into 2021, the Company will exclude the NASDAQ earn-out from adjusted earnings and adjusted EBITDA and recap its historical results for enhanced comparability. Our near-term capital allocation priorities are to return capital to stockholders through share repurchases and to invest in growth and margin expansion at attractive returns. We also intend to pay down our revolving credit facility. Newmark plans to continue with dividend and distributions at or near current levels through the balance of 2021. After a review of these priorities, numerous Newmark's Board of Directors yesterday increased our repurchase authorization of $400 million. Newmark's is not providing specific earnings guidance for 2021 due to current market uncertainty. However, we expect U.S. capital markets volumes to improve, based on elevated multifamily, life science and industrial activity. We expect GSE originations to remain strong. We anticipate leasing activity will remain challenged until there is greater clarity around the return to the workplace. But, we believe demand will accelerate as the pandemic subsides. Based on these factors, we expect to generate double digit revenue growth in 2021. We executed cost savings initiatives in 2020, which will result in approximately $60 million of permanent savings in 2021. The Company is further planning to reduce its expense base to achieve an additional $15 million of savings by the end of 2021, resulting in total permanent savings of $75 million. This represents 10.5% decrease from our pre-pandemic expense levels. We anticipate adjusted EBITDA margins will expand to above 20% in 2021. And while we expect improvement in adjusted earnings and adjusted EBITDA in 2021, year-over-year comparisons in the first quarter will be challenging because our first quarter 2020 revenues were relatively unaffected by the pandemic, which was declared on March 11, 2020. I would now like to turn the call back to Barry.