Cushman & Wakefield plc

Good day and welcome to Cushman and Wakefield's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. If you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one, on a touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Megan McGrath, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you and welcome to Cushman and Wakefield's second quarter 2025 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 .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 forecast 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. Reconciliation 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 2024 and in local currency unless otherwise stated. All revenue figures refer to fee revenue unless otherwise noted, and any reference to organic growth excludes the impact of last year's divestiture of our non-core services business. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Michelle McKay.

Thank you, Megan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Two years ago, we set a new course for Cushman and Wakefield grounded by three clear pillars, protecting our core strengths, operating with discipline, and cultivating avenues for growth. We have now achieved the majority of our three-year targets in that two-year window, well ahead of plan by staying focused, disciplined, and action-oriented. Today, we're pleased to share measurable progress on multiple fronts, outcomes made possible by our collective commitment, resilience, and dedication to our clear vision. We have rebuilt the company from the inside out, and now you will see us take flight. Our results in the first half of this year demonstrate the impact and success of our transformational strategy. We drove top-line growth in nearly every region and service line in both the first and second quarters. -to-date, we have driven more than 90 basis points of improvement in adjusted EBITDA margins versus the prior year and increased adjusted earnings per share by 95% to 39 cents per share. And excluding the immediate period post-COVID recovery in 2021, this is the strongest first-half earnings growth we have experienced since going public in 2018. And as Neal will discuss in more detail, we are meaningfully raising our full-year EPS guidance. Our capital markets business is expanding at an accelerating pace, bolstered by improving capital market dynamics as well as our internal talent initiatives. Capital markets revenue grew by an impressive 26% in the second quarter, and we achieved this level of growth while only being in the very early stages of our talent expansion. -to-date in the Americas, we have recruited capital markets brokers with annual average revenue that is 200% higher than we recruited in all of 2024. We are adding professionals across all product types, and we are very enthusiastic about what they will bring to our business once fully ramped. Our leasing business continues to run on all cylinders. We grew revenue in all major asset classes in 2Q, including industrial, which was up 8% in the Americas. Our strength in leasing lies in the superior advice and execution we provide our clients regardless of the economic backdrop. We see this acutely in our multi-market occupier group, where mandate complexity is increasing, driving average contract revenue up 45% in the first half of this year. And the turnaround in our services business is in full swing. We achieved 6% fully organic growth in the quarter, an acceleration from first quarter's growth as our teams continue to drive positive momentum. We are winning new business and driving incremental growth within our portfolio of existing customers as we more consistently bring to them the full suite of capabilities of the Cushman platform. And our intensified focus on client retention is seeing results with a 96% annualized retention rate in our GOS business -to-date. Alongside our strong second quarter earnings performance, we are announcing that today we have prepaid an additional $150 million in debt, bringing our total debt repayments in the last 18 months to $400 million. Our gross debt has now been reduced from $3.2 billion to $2.8 billion. And the combination of this deleveraging with five successful repricings over that same period has resulted in total interest savings of more than $45 million annually. In terms of the overall market, what began to emerge in the second half of 2024 is now clear. Leaders of companies, both large and small, are navigating their businesses through market noise and volatility and are making long-term strategic decisions about how they occupy and manage their real estate and infrastructure portfolios. In addition, lender appetites to deploy capital continues to provide borrowers with increasing optionality, better terms, and more flexibility, providing a boost to capital markets activity. Looking ahead, we anticipate continued growth in global leasing markets, ongoing progress in capital markets activity, and increased opportunity to gain market share in our services businesses. Now, I'll hand it over to Neil to go through our second quarter results in more detail.