Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated

Thank you and good morning.

Welcome to the first quarter 2025 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, as well as in our slide presentation and supplemental 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. We also reference resilient and transactional revenues, which we define in the footnotes of our earnings release. Affected with first quarter results, we updated our definition to shift project management from transactional to resilient. Categorizations of all other business lines remain unchanged. 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 discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K and in other reports filed with the SEC. The company disclaims any undertaking to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Finally, a reminder that percentage variances are against the prior year period in local currency unless otherwise noted. I will now turn the call over to Christian Ulbrich, our president and chief executive officer, for opening remarks.

Thank you, Sean. Hello and welcome to our first quarter 2025 earnings call. As we look back at the first quarter, we are pleased with our financial results with double-digit revenue gains across both our resilient and transactional businesses and 28% growth in adjusted EPS. The continued improvement of our leasing and investment sales debt and equity advisory businesses was a key driver of higher profit and margin, as momentum from the second half of 2024 supported stability in real estate fundamentals. The sustained growth of double-digit resilient revenue further amplified these gains, driving a strong start for our newly formed real estate management services segments. Clients are looking to JLL for integrated end-to-end building management solutions, industry expertise, and data-driven insights. Since the end of the quarter, the market backdrop has become more dynamic and is creating a more challenging operating environment for companies. JLL has a long history of navigating market uncertainty, at least over the past five years. while also gaining market share and growing at over three times the rate of global GDP through cycle. We remain confident in the strength and resilience of our company and our industry-leading platform. To date, there have been limited direct impacts on our results from the recent policy volatility and uncertainty, although some clients are delaying decision-making as they monitor macro developments. Slower economic growth could have spillover effects for our industry, but it is still too early to predict the future implications for our business. Despite the challenges of the current economic climate, we maintain high conviction in our strategy and the long-term structural drivers for our industry. We remain focused on profitable and sustainable growth and will continue to strategically invest in our people and platform. We are still leading businesses, but will remain key contributors to our outperformance through market volatility. I will highlight three of these areas today. First, our real estate management services business has capitalized on the growing trend of outsourcing as well as the increased focus on building operations and tenant experience across occupier and investor portfolios. We are building differentiated and scalable platforms across our workplace management and project management businesses, and we are now globalizing our property management business with a shift into this segment, which went into effect on January 1st. We believe many geographies and industries have significant untapped potential for outsourcing penetration and advancements in technology, including in artificial intelligence, which will further transform how we serve clients in the future. Across our people, data and technology, we are investing to grow the revenue and profit contributions in particular of our resilient businesses. Second, JLL has been a beneficiary of increasing capital flows to real estate for many decades, creating products and services to meet the needs of our investor clients throughout the assets lifecycle. The proliferation of private credit has brought new sources of debt capital into the market and has become a key driver of our business with notable growth prospects ahead. We are the largest debt intermediary in commercial real estate globally through our debt advisory business where revenue growth exceeded 45% in the first quarter. In investment management, our business has experience operating credit funds across Europe and North America dating back 15 years. We are seeing strong fundraising demand in both regions today, particularly for our US credit strategy. Our deep expertise in real estate debt is providing us with an unparalleled level of data and insights in the industry, allowing us to better advise clients and gain market share while introducing a degree of resilience to our transactional revenue. Third, care wins are emerging which support a broader recovery in the office sector, supported by the expansion of return to office mandate, moderation of downsizing rates in office leasing activity, and liquidity improvements for office sales and financing. Corporates around the world are gaining more clarity on future space needs, and with historically low development pipelines in the US and Europe, office fundamentals and rents are likely to continue to strengthen for top-tier buildings. Quality assets are also growing more scarce, creating spillover demand for the next tier of buildings. We have seen positive improvements in office transactional revenues of the past year, in particular in the US, where pressures on the sector have been most pronounced. As clients optimize office holdings, increase acquisition activity in the sector, and reinvest in buildings and spaces, JLL is well positioned to lead the office sector's rebound for the collective data and insight of the full firm. Before handing it over to Karen, I want to get back to the important changes to our senior leadership team announced earlier today. After five years as CFO, I'm pleased to share that Karen will be taking on a new role on our Global Executive Board as Chief Executive Officer of our Leasing Advisory Business globally, effective July 1st. Andy Popping, current CEO of Leasing Advisory, will assume the role of CEO of Leasing Advisory in Mayan Asia Pacific, reporting to Karen and based out of Europe. Throughout Karen's more than 25-year tenure at JLL, She has exemplified strategic vision, excellence in execution, and dedication to our clients as she has taken on numerous leadership roles across our business globally. I'm also pleased to announce that Kelly Howe will succeed Karen as JLL's Chief Financial Officer. Kelly joined JLL as the CFO of Leasing Advisory In January 2024, after 23 plus years of experience in professional services with Boston Consulting Group, most recently as the North America CFO, Kelly will join our global executive board. With that, I will now turn the call over to Karen to provide details on our results for the quarter.