Cushman & Wakefield plc

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Cushman and Wakefield's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. 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 followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by the number two. It is now my pleasure to introduce Megan McGrath, head of investor relations for Cushman & Wakefield. Ms. McGrath, you may begin the conference.

Thank you, and welcome to Cushman & Wakefield's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the period. This release, along with today's presentation, can be found on our investor relations website at ir.cushmanwakefield.com. Please turn to the page in our presentation labeled Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements. Today's presentation contains forward-looking statements based on our current forecasts and estimates of future events. These statements should be considered estimates only and actual results may differ materially. During today's call, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures as outlined by SEC guidelines. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures, definitions of non-GAAP financial measures, and other related information are found within the financial tables of our earnings release and the appendix of today's presentation. Also, please note that throughout the presentation, comparisons and growth rates are to the comparable periods of 2022 and in local currency unless otherwise stated. For those of you following along with our presentation, we will begin on page four. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Michelle McKay.

Thank you, Megan. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Before I begin, I'd like to thank our former CEO, John Forrester, for his leadership and dedication to this company and his assistance in making this transition as seamless as possible. Neil will dive more deeply into the numbers shortly. But looking at our second quarter, the key takeaway is this. In challenging market conditions, we were able to quickly pivot and deliver strong financial results with sequential improvement in revenue, EBITDA, and margin. And while I recently took the reins as CEO, I've been with the company for some time, and therefore I've been able to hit the ground running with the leadership team. I want to thank all of them for their focus and hard work since I started, and while we've got plenty of work ahead of us to help the company achieve its full potential, I am very pleased with the start that we've made, and I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing inside the business as we take a deeper dive into each of the business lines. We're already fully underway with a full review of our operations, how we lead the business, and identifying our strategic direction while preserving the integrity and strength of what we've already built, a highly diversified revenue mix, a resilient business model, and a strong financial position. We've got great bones here and a clear opportunity to excel. My goal, simply, is to significantly improve and build upon Cushman's already solid core. As you can imagine, I'm going to leave no stone unturned in making sure that we move expeditiously and decisively to grow this company and build confidence both in ourselves and also with our partners and key stakeholders. My number one priority is ensuring that we are being great stewards of capital, balancing investing for the future growth and maintaining a healthy balance sheet with a strong liquidity profile. As a new CEO, I am taking a fresh approach, holistically reviewing our business while introducing a more data-driven methodology to the process. This includes a deeper evaluation of free cash flow, margin profile, growth expectations, capital intensity, and core competencies for each business individually. And here's a bit on how we're going to dig in. We're reinforcing core and expanding our thoughts on growth. Over the past several weeks, I've met with the leaders from each of our businesses to review the business's core strengths and better assess how each business line fits into our overall corporate strategy with a focus on identifying new areas of growth and operating efficiencies. I have been extremely impressed with our leadership team's expertise and their cognitive flexibility in reassessing their individual businesses. And as we go through this process, we want to foster a solution-oriented entrepreneurial culture that allows us to compete and deliver the solve for our clients at the highest level. Markets move quickly, as do the demands on our clients, and we need to be able to sprint with them. Once our strategy is fine-tuned, we'll create a framework for decision-making based on that refreshed strategy. In fact, it's already in process. Creating a detailed framework to help internal decision makers make better and faster decisions with a keen focus on our core priorities will be paramount to achieving success. We believe that by bringing more data and more information to our leaders in the field in a way that is easily digestible, we will create a knowledge-based culture that will encourage decisions being made more closely to the business. How we organize and run the company will be next on the list. One of our main objectives in this process is to simplify our business structure with an eye on strategic value to the company overall, as well as long-term return potential. Right size, right structure for all markets. Today, we announced $40 million of additional cost-cutting measures for this year, building upon the $90 million program we had previously announced. Our assessment has shown that simplifying our structure and reducing costs is not only necessary in light of the current market conditions, but also strategically advantageous. We see this as an opportunity to create a more streamlined and agile structure for long-term success. We must also break down silos in the organization to facilitate and motivate and bring the entire enterprise to the table in every client conversation. We don't want to bring one or two notes. We want to bring the entire orchestra. We have truly dominant knowledge and expertise across the company that we need to bring out more definitively to our advantage. Ultimately, leveraging this thought leadership will enable us to be the preferred solution provider to all of our clients and better facilitate cross-selling opportunities across the firm. A refreshed capital allocation framework is the result of all of this work. We recognize that growth is important in any industry, and we believe that business resiliency is paramount to ensuring the stability of long-term returns. We'll be taking a more intentional and holistic approach to capital allocation as it relates to our updated strategy across all of our businesses, but the knowledge that investment capital allocated to our business lines is not free, and we must evaluate returns accordingly. Lastly, the health of our balance sheet and our liquidity profile will remain a top priority. And as we fine-tune our strategy, we will continue to look to improve our capital structure over time. Over the upcoming quarters, you'll hear more from me on the progress of our transformational work at Cushman & Wakefield. But before we move on, I'd like to thank all of our employees for their hard work and dedication during my transition to the CEO role, but also every day. Our people are up for the challenges presented by today's market conditions, engaged, and always looking to serve our clients. And now, I'd like to hand the call over to Neil for a review of our second quarter financial results.