Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated

Good day and welcome to the Q2 2024 JLL 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 one again. For operator assistance throughout the call, please press star zero. And finally, I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Scott Heimberger, Head of Minister Relations, to begin the conference. Scott, over to you.

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to the second quarter 2024 earnings conference call for Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings release. along with a slide presentation and Excel file intended to supplement our prepared remarks. These materials are available on the investor relations section of our website. Please visit ir.jll.com. During the call and in our slide presentation and an accompanying Excel file, we reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors. We include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP in our earnings release and slide presentation. As a reminder, today's call is being webcast live and recorded. A transcript and recording of this conference call will be posted to our website. Any statements made about future results and performance, plans, expectations, and objectives are forward-looking statements. Actual results and performance may differ from those forward-looking statements as a result of factors disclosed in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year December 31st, 2023, and in other reports filed with the SEC. The company disclaims any undertaking to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Christian Ulbrich, our President and Chief Executive Officer, for opening remarks.

Thank you, Scott. Hello and welcome to our second quarter 2024 earnings call. JLL's second quarter financial results reflected the strengths of our resilient business lines as well as solid performance across our transactional businesses. I'm very pleased with our ability to continue to improve the efficiency of our operating model, which combined with revenue growth in the quarter drove increased profitability. Looking first at the global real estate market backdrop, while risks remain, investor sentiment is more positive at mid-year compared to late 2023, supported by the expectation for easing monetary policy in many large markets. In the second quarter, global commercial real estate investment was down 1% year-over-year in local currency, reaching $155 billion, according to JLL research. Investment volumes in EMEA and Asia-Pacific posted modest gains during the quarter, an early signal for growth. In the U.S., activity declined 3% year-over-year in the second quarter. A wider-than-normal bid-ask spread remains but has been improving as real estate markets globally have undergone significant price adjustments from peak 2022 levels. Debt market conditions continue to improve as well as origination volumes stabilize and pricing declines. Lender confidence remains varied and is strongest for in-demand sectors such as logistics, living, and grocery-anchored retail. Turning to office leasing, activity continued to strengthen from sub-due 2023 levels during the second quarter. Globally, office leasing volumes increased 10% year-over-year according to JLL research. Performance was mixed across geographies with an improving economic outlook and stabilizing hybrid work policies contributing to increases in the U.S. and Europe, while volumes were slightly lower in Asia-Pacific amid cost concerns and limited available space in several key markets. The number of large lease transactions continued to improve in the quarter, but is still well below pre-pandemic levels. The global vacancy rate inched higher to 16.6%, rising by 10 basis points sequentially across all three regions. New groundbreakings have fallen to the lowest level on record in the US and in Europe. Supply is expected to slow in 2025. New deliveries will remain above historic averages in Asia-Pacific to meet current demand. On the industrial side, Global activity remains subdued in the second quarter as occupiers are still cautious and looking to increase utilization of space lease during the pandemic before committing to new deals. Rental growth remains positive but is beginning to plateau given an elevated level of supply. A bright spot has been the communications and technology sector where average lease prices have more than doubled as large tech companies take space to support data center operations. Despite a slower start to 2024 across many markets, demand for high-quality space with sustainable solutions and automated technology is expected to drive long-term growth. Finally, in the retail sector, consumer spending remains resilient, driving demand for the limited amount of space in prime locations. Turning to JLL's results for the quarter, we continue to focus on growing our resilient business lines as part of our strategy to further diversify our revenue base and reduce earnings volatility. Collectively, our resilient revenue base grew 16% led by our workplace management and property management businesses. We have a long runway for growth in these business lines. As we continued to scale our global platform, we were able to leverage our existing cost base and drive margin expansion. Our transactional revenues increased by 5% in the quarter, led by growth in leasing, where our U.S. office leasing revenue was up double digits for the second quarter in a row. Investment sales revenues also showed year-over-year growth, as the green shoots we spoke about earlier this year are translating to additional client engagement. Investments we have made in this part of our business are generating higher quality leads for our brokers and supporting above market growth rates. Our focus on cost management and operating efficiency is paying dividends with adjusted EBITDA growth, meaningfully exceeding revenue growth in the first six months of the year. With that, I will now turn the call over to Karen, who will provide more detail on our results for the quarter.