Transcripts
Colliers International Group Inc.'s management answers for the business every quarter. These are the exchanges that explain it best — verbatim, from the call transcripts preserved in Sources. Each link opens the full transcript at that page in a new tab.
Q2 2026 Earnings Call — Q2 2026
The current thesis in management's own words: three platforms, 70% recurring earnings, and a buyback finally on the table. · Open the full transcript →
Management's own framing of the three-platform model and how it is meant to compound.
Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers): Having built two large global platforms at Colliers in Commercial Real Estate and in Engineering, we are now building our third. We are bringing our investment management capabilities together across real estate, credit, infrastructure, and private wealth. We are creating more investment opportunities for our clients and greater long-term value for our shareholders. […] Today, approximately 70% of our earnings come from resilient, recurring revenue streams, giving Colliers greater flexibility, greater stability, stronger cash flow, and perhaps most importantly, more ways to grow our business. What further differentiates Colliers is how our platforms are working together. Commercial real estate gives us market intelligence and deep client relationships. Engineering adds technical expertise and execution capability. Harrison Street brings capital formation, investment discipline, and ownership expertise. Together, they create a much more integrated Colliers, one that can engage clients earlier, serve more of the value chain, and replicate that model across high-growth ecosystems. Data centers is just one example. We can help clients identify and acquire sites, provide engineering, and technical services to design, build, and operate these facilities, and deploy capital through Harrison Street, which over the past six years has invested more than $6 billion in digital infrastructure and data centers already.
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Why a fundraising headline does not become fee revenue on a fixed schedule.
Himanshu Gupta (Scotiabank); Christian Mayer (CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate, Colliers): Okay, thank you. Maybe just last question. I think over $2 billion was raised during the quarter. Has this capital been deployed? I'm just trying to see that when will this raise will lead to EBITDA pickup in numbers? […] Yeah. We did raise $2.2 billion of new capital in the second quarter. That capital comes in a mix of fund types. Some of the closed-end funds, that capital becomes fee-bearing immediately. In other fund types it will take some time to deploy that capital and then that capital will at that point become fee-bearing. This is a normal part of the fundraising process. Some capital, as I mentioned, becomes fee-bearing immediately. Some takes time to be deployed and then become fee-bearing. That's reflected in our expectations for the year.
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Share gains are real; the CFO also concedes the producer hiring behind them is a drag on margin.
Erin Kyle (CIBC Capital Markets); Christian Mayer (CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate, Colliers): Growth has been quite strong for the past two quarters in Capital Markets and leasing this quarter as well. That's in despite of an interest rate environment that hasn't necessarily been as constructive as everyone was expecting, maybe heading into the year. Would you say that's mainly a function of pent-up demand in the market, or is Colliers winning share here? As I know you've been recruiting for new team members across the CRE segment as well. […] Erin, we certainly believe all that is the case. We have been winning share of market. In particular, in terms of our recruiting efforts, I think we've been very disciplined but yet aggressive on recruiting. We've added more producers than others. I think relative to our publicly traded peers, in the U.S. at least, we've added more producers on a percentage basis than they have. It has been a modest drag on our margins over the last few quarters as we ramp these folks up. We're feeling very good about our business and about the trajectory. The rate environment, of course, is one that is top of mind for real estate investors. I think as long as it's in a range, activity levels will continue.
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Asked how AI risk gets priced into engineering acquisitions, the CEO says purchase multiples are being marked down.
Jimmy Shan (RBC Capital Markets); Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers): Maybe just as a follow-up, you've still been acquiring, obviously, the last few acquisitions have been on the engineering side. I guess with the uncertainty with respect to how AI can potentially impact the business, at least from a public market perspective, I wondered if there's been any change in the multiples that you've observed that people are paying for engineering firms, or how would you underwrite, if at all, any AI risk when you underwrite those businesses? […] Technology and AI, they're always an important element. Everybody woke up last week, and all of a sudden, AI is a fancy word. For years, we've been using technology to automate workflows, and get productivity gains, and take our specialized data, and create special insights and unique insights for our clients. One of the things that we've done in light of the additional focus on AI is we tasked our people to create a shopping list of ideas and opportunities that can improve our business further using AI. There were several interesting ones, and we've increased our technology spend against the highest priority initiatives. AI has actually become a benefit in the sense that it's raised the focus around making changes to our business to become more competitive and unlock some embedded data sets that we might have. […] Really, at the end of the day, it's not about all of that. It's about professional judgment, specialized expertise, and trusted relationships which don't change. When I think about both commercial real estate and I think about engineering, I think that they are going to only get better, more efficient, but the most important thing which you alluded to in your first sentence is, yes, we are adjusting down the purchase prices, arguing that AI is going to have a major impact on some of these businesses, which it will not. I say will not. It will not to the big players because we're in the game and we're doing what we need to do. The small guys don't have the depth and capital to capitalize on these things. The bigger guys do, and I think AI will only help us make our business better. […] The smaller guys don't have those advantages, and as a result, we could be buying, and are buying exceptional businesses, albeit smaller, at better valuations this year than last year, for example, for that reason.
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The CFO caps leverage at 2.8x and sizes the buyback: about $100 million, 1%-2% of the float.
Daryl Young (Stifel); Christian Mayer (CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate, Colliers); Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers): Got it. Just one last one. On the NCIB, did you say you'd be willing to take the leverage back to three times in the back half of the year to get aggressive on the NCIB, or did I mishear that? […] Daryl, to be very clear, we did not say that. In my view, 2.8x is the high water mark. We're going to de-lever through the balance of the year. We may, at these prevailing prices, spend, call it, say, just for argument's discussion's sake here, $100 million would buy back 2%, 1% of our float. It could be nicely accretive without being meaningfully impactful on our leverage. Certainly we don't expect to have a material increase to our leverage as a result of a stock buyback action. […] It really depends on the M&A opportunities as well, because we do have quite a pipeline of deals, we'll have to see how the balance of the year shakes out before we execute on that.
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The long-term leverage target, and the acquisition carve-out that has kept actual leverage well above it.
Mitch Germain (Citizens Bank); Christian Mayer (CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate, Colliers): Then, remind me what you guys are viewing as more of a long-term leverage target. I think you were back in 2024, you were around two times. It's come up with a bunch of acquisitions. I know that you're forecasting it to come down a bit by year-end. Longer term, is there some sort of range that you consider to be what you're striving to target? […] Yes, Mitch. Our target leverage range is one and a half to two times with a bump out for significant acquisition activity, which I guess certainly falls in that category.
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What the guidance rests on: transaction pipelines, the 10-year Treasury, and a 12-month engineering backlog.
Stephen MacLeod (BMO Capital Markets); Christian Mayer (CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate, Colliers): you talked in your prepared remarks about having very strong back half visibility into all three segments, and I'm just curious what the foundation of that is. Maybe starting with CRE, what are your customers saying about the rates environment? In engineering, you talked about having a 12-month backlog, and I'm just curious how that's trended relative to prior quarters. […] We track our pipelines in Commercial Real Estate in a very disciplined manner. We've been doing this for a long time, and it's something that is a key part of what we do every day and how we manage the business every day. We certainly look at the 10-year Treasury as a bellwether for the U.S. particular. At 4.7%, it's kind of on the high end, but it moves around, as you know. With the information we have and in our best judgment, we see a strong list of transactions that will happen over the next year. We have more visibility into the more near-term transactions, being the ones in the next quarter or the next six months. As a result, that gives us the confidence we're looking for. […] In terms of our backlogs in engineering, we have really four engineering businesses that operate around the world, Ayesa being the newest. Each one has a wide variety of clients and end markets, and each one tracks its revenue backlogs. Our goal always is to have a 12-month backlog of work under contract. That is where we currently sit. I know that can vary a little bit seasonally. Certainly right now where we sit is very comfortable and we have the visibility we need from that backlog to give you the outlook that we delivered.
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Q4 and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call — Q4 2025
The annual call: full-year scorecard, segment-by-segment 2026 guidance, the Ayesa rationale, and the AI question answered at length. · Open the full transcript →
The scorecard management holds itself to, and the acquisition that reshapes the engineering platform.
Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers International Group): 2025 is an exceptional year for Colliers. Repeat, an exceptional year for Colliers, reflecting the strength of our diversified platform and our successful expansion into other high-quality, recurring professional services. Today, more than 70% of our earnings come from these resilient businesses, approaching 75% once recent acquisitions are included. Our fourth quarter results were in line with expectation and were up nicely over last year, which itself was a very strong year-over-year performance. Last week, we achieved another milestone, agreeing to acquire Ayesa Engineering, a world-class business and a rare opportunity at this scale. […] This acquisition meaningfully expands our avenues for growth, strengthens our ability to scale organically, pursue further acquisitions, and cross-sell engineering capabilities across our global client base. Once closed, Colliers Engineering will rank among the top 30 global engineering firms with expanded presence in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. […] Over the past five years, despite challenging and often unpredictable conditions, Colliers doubled its size, delivering compound annual growth rates of more than 15%, and based on what we see today, we expect similar performance again in 2026.
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Segment-by-segment 2026 guidance, with the caveat that Capital Markets stays well below prior peaks.
Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International Group): In that spirit, we are introducing our outlook for 2026 as follows: In commercial real estate, we are expecting low teens top-line growth and a modest increase in net margin, predicated on a continued recovery in Capital Markets. It's important to note that even with this growth, our Capital Markets activity will remain well below prior peaks[…]. Our Engineering segment is expecting mid-single-digit internal growth and the impact of acquisitions, including Ayesa, resulting in total top-line growth of over 25%. This growth is supported by a strong backlog and favorable trends in infrastructure, urbanization, and energy transition, along with increasing data center demand. Investment Management, net revenue growth is expected to be in the low teens, with growth led by higher management fees as fundraising continues to accelerate. Putting it all together, we're expecting mid-teens growth in all three of our key operating metrics.
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The clearest account of engineering economics: roughly 60% is design work, not billed hourly, at higher margin.
Tony Paolone (JPMorgan); Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers International Group): I'd like to start with engineering and just a bit on the organic growth there. You know, as you roll that up, if I think about that business, I think about it being like an hourly rate, number of professionals, and the number of hours worked. Can you talk about just, like, what's happening with some of those trends organically and, you know, where you're finding success or not and sort of those revenue synergies as you roll this up? […] Let me let me add, Tony, a couple of things that just maybe simplify some thoughts. Probably 60% of the engineering business is what I would categorize as design, which is design of all types of solutions, which is not hourly based, although we do, we do manage our labor on an hourly-based basis, but it is not priced to clients on the basis of an hourly rate. The balance of the business is more, I would say, closer akin to project management. Once the design is complete and needs to be executed upon, it's closer to an hourly rate kind of structure. So, we love that business because the design aspect allows us to generate higher margins, yet the the hourly rate portion or the, or the project management portion is something that is certain. […] It is long term. For example, we have some clients where the execution of the project may be 10 or 12 years, where we're allocating X number of people for a long period of time to oversee the completion of the work. So it's a very interesting business opportunity for us. It's a very good business, and as Christian said, there's a shortage of engineers virtually everywhere in the world, which is driving up pricing. You know, we'd like it to drive it up a little bit more, but it is driving up overall pricing because it's hard to get qualified engineers. So I thought I'd add that little editorial.
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February 2026: buybacks ruled out while the deal pipeline is live — a stance reversed by the July call.
Daryl Young (Stifel); Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers International Group): I wanted to start with a question just on capital allocation and, specifically where the share price is today and, and your thoughts on buybacks or, or an SIB. […] I'd love to buy back stock right now. But we have lots in the pipe, including Ayesa, as you know. And we believe more behind that. So we're watching our capital carefully. It's very easy to do an equity offering and dilute shareholders, but that's never been our MO. We're in the business of creating long-term shareholder value. So you know, buying back stock is not really in the, as a corporate matter, is not really in the plan. But on a personal level, it might be in the plan.
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The 2026 Capital Markets guide assumes no rate cuts, only that a backlog of deals must eventually transact.
Erin Kyle (CIBC); Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International Group): I wanted to start maybe on the macro here, and if you can just give us some more detail on what you're seeing from a macro perspective as it relates to the Capital Markets pipeline here, and then maybe just elaborate a little bit on what's baked into that 2026 guide and whether it depends on some additional rate cuts here. […] Yeah, Erin, we're not counting on rate cuts in terms of our outlook for Capital Markets. Capital Markets is benefiting from a pent-up supply or pent-up demand, a pent-up supply of transactions. As you know, transaction activity has been slow for a number of years, and there's a lot of people in the market that want and need to transact, and that's starting to turn into revenues for Colliers. So that's really what we're seeing. We had strength in 2025 in Capital Markets, and we expect that to continue in 2026, with more transactions happening at all price points across all markets. 2025 was led by the U.S. […] I think the U.S. will continue to be very strong, and hopefully, volumes will pick up in EMEA and Asia Pac, which have been a little bit slower.
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The investment-management margin path: down to the high 30s in 2026, back to the mid-40s in 2027.
Stephen MacLeod (BMO Capital Markets); Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International Group): just on, on the investment management business, just as you, as you work through the investments you're making this year and coming out the other end, you know, better, better positioned to, capital formation and things like that. Christian, could you just talk a little bit about sort of where you see margins going once, once the, once the, the investment on, in unified into the unified platform has been, has been made? […] Yeah. You're gonna see margins decline in 2026 to the, you know, high 30s net margin area. And then in 2027, we're expecting to return to our historical average margin in the mid-40s. So that's, you know, essentially, you know, with fundraising, as we outlined, you know, starting to accelerate, and with these integration efforts behind us.
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Q2 2025 Earnings Call — Q2 2025
The tariff quarter: leasing fell while engineering grew 70%, and the diversification claim was tested in public. · Open the full transcript →
The diversification claim under load: industrial leasing hit by tariff uncertainty, engineering net revenue up 70%.
Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International): Leasing revenues declined 5% globally, coming in below expectations. While office leasing was strong, it was offset by weaker industrial volumes due to tariff-related and other macroeconomic uncertainty. Segment net margin was down slightly to 11.9%, impacted by revenue mix and continued investments in recruiting. […] Our engineering net revenue jumped 70%, fueled by acquisitions and internal growth of 8%. The net margin rose to 13.7%, a substantial increase from last year, with improvements coming from both acquisitions and enhanced productivity in our core operations. We continue to monitor any potential impacts from tariffs or government policy, but we've seen no significant effect on our backlogs to date.
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Cash conversion and why it holds: a working-capital-light model with modest capex.
Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International): On a trailing 12-month basis, we converted 98% of adjusted net earnings into free cash flow, in line with our long-term target. As we've noted before, our working capital-light business model and modest CapEx result in strong free cash flows available for reinvestment and growth. […] Turning to our balance sheet, our leverage ratio was 2.3x as of June 30th. Second quarter leverage was slightly higher than anticipated, firstly due to our increased pace of acquisitions and secondly due to the recent appreciation of the U.S. dollar, which increased the reported value of our foreign denominated debt. With the completion of the Asterisk and RoundShield acquisitions in July, we now expect our leverage to decline to just under 2x by year-end. This assumes no additional major acquisitions.
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Where tariffs actually bite: the markets Colliers is strongest in are among the most exposed.
Anthony Paolone (JPMorgan); Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers International): My first question relates to Leasing. I understand the industrial weakness that occurred in the quarter. Just wondering, did you find that to be a surprise? Did the market change more dramatically than maybe you thought? Also, what's it look like today? Has there been much of a rebound as you start to look at the second half of the year? […] Tony, we'd expected leasing softness for the second quarter. I think we telegraphed that in our first quarter commentary. We compete in many markets. We have a very diversified business in 35 countries and strong positions in places like Canada, Australia, and Western Europe that are heavily tariff-impacted. That was something we thought would weigh on our results, and it did. Although I can report that July has been more positive in terms of trajectory on that, and that includes industrial leasing activity being trending more positively today.
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Pressed on an investment-management spin-off and the sum-of-the-parts gap, the CEO neither commits nor closes the door.
Stephen Sheldon (William Blair); Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers International): I also wanted to ask about the IM branding consolidation under Harrison Street. Jay, you've been pretty vocal, I think, about investors undervaluing the IM segment and the team considering a potential spin-off. Does the rebranding set the stage even more for that? Generally, how serious are you about pursuing that if Colliers doesn't get the sum of the parts valuation you think it deserves? […] We always look at our overall valuation, and we believe that the overall valuation, especially given the component parts of Colliers, is materially below where it should be. The steps we're taking in the IM segment are probably steps we would have taken anyway. For those that follow us, you'll know that our reluctance so far to accelerate doing anything, and we haven't made any final decisions about this, has been really around fundraising. The fundraising for the past couple of years has been softer than we've expected, but it's picking up now. Now is an appropriate time to make the changes necessary to augment our leadership team.
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The engineering backlog rule, and the public/private client mix meant to carry it through cycles.
Stephen MacLeod (BMO Capital Markets); Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International): We always strive to maintain a backlog in excess of 12 months of revenue. That continues to be the case today, regardless of the fact we've increased revenue significantly. That backlog needs to grow significantly as the revenue on the trailing 12 basis grows in the business. We are able to do that. We are having success with gaining wins on contracts for new infrastructure projects, larger-scale type projects as well in the private sector. We feel very confident about our pipeline of revenue in that business and where it's tracking, right where we expect it to be in terms of our planning. We also strive to maintain a mix of private sector and public sector clientele in the segment. We look at that carefully, and that balance gives our revenues additional resilience through all cycles of the economy, and that's something we strive to do as well.
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Q3 2024 Earnings Call — Q3 2024
The call that both redrew the reporting segments and cut the profit outlook — and explained, number by number, how each segment converts revenue into EBITDA. · Open the full transcript →
The quarter the reporting segments were redrawn, with the long-run growth and return record management cites.
Jay Hennick (Chairman and CEO, Colliers International): This quarter, Colliers realigned its operating segments to better reflect the future potential and value of our complementary growth engines, and we delivered solid growth across each one of them. […] Through the Colliers Way, we have continued to strengthen our commercial real estate operations around the world while adding new growth engines and service lines to provide more recurring revenue streams and diversification to our successful business model. Today, recurring revenues contribute more than 70% of our earnings, providing exceptional balance and predictability, driving greater shareholder value now and into the future. […] With experienced leadership, significant inside ownership, and a proven 30-year record of delivering 20% annualized returns for shareholders, we expect to sustain mid to high single-digit growth going forward, and as we enter 2025, we expect further upside to come from improving capital markets
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The guidance cut stated plainly, and what in the model was already fixed by November.
Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International): We have revised our outlook based on our year-to-date operating results and our updated fundraising expectations for the fourth quarter, as I noted a moment ago. With less than two months remaining in the year, our investment management results are essentially locked within a tight range. […] Our expectation for adjusted earnings per share growth is being impacted by the mix of earnings and higher-than-planned depreciation expense due mainly to technology investments.
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Why a fundraising shortfall moves earnings so hard: 40%-50% incremental EBITDA margin on new commitments.
Stephen Sheldon (William Blair); Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International): can you just walk through the moving pieces for the profit guide reduction? How much of that is due to lower fundraising and expected profit in IM? And it also sounds like you're reinvesting in an RES to support the growth outlook there. So maybe how much more are you reinvesting there, maybe relative to what you'd included in the guidance last quarter? Just more detail on the moving pieces in the profit guide. […] Yeah, Steven. So I think as we noted in our comments and in the press release, the adjustment to the earnings outlook is entirely due to investment management fundraising. And to give you a bit more color on investment management, the capital commitments that are generated in any given year become accretive to revenues in a modest way and to EBITDA in a very significant way because of the high incremental margins on this, in the range of 40%-50% incremental EBITDA margin.
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The capital cycle: harvest gains, return capital to LPs, and use the distribution to raise the next vintage.
Jimmy Shan (RBC Capital Markets); Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International): Yeah, Jimmy, we have been deploying capital this year, but we've also been, and we noted it last quarter, we've also been harvesting gains in our portfolios. So we do have certain older vintage funds that are nearing the end of their lives, and those are funds where you take the opportunities to selectively sell assets and realize those gains and return that capital to investors. […] That's the capital cycle, and it certainly facilitates future fundraising for us. And we did have some more of that activity in the third quarter. We expect that activity to continue, deploy new capital, and then also harvest gains and realize gains on existing investments and recycle that capital to investors. And that will lead to additional fundraising going forward because that is a very positive signal, obviously, for our LPs.
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Incremental margin by service line: about 20% on brokerage revenue, diluted by valuation and property management.
Jimmy Shan (RBC Capital Markets); Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International): In terms of the Real Estate Services margin, pointed out the flat margins, sounds like it's aggressive recruiting. So how do we think about the operating leverage going forward now with, if we see continued recovery, do we expect that? How do we think about that margin? […] So our real estate services business, just to pull back a bit here, we've got leasing, capital markets, and outsourcing, three different service lines. Our leasing and capital markets business, as we generate additional revenues there, we do expect incremental margins in the order of about 20% on an incremental revenue dollar. […] But that is, when you look at the real estate services segment, it's muted somewhat by the incremental margins coming from valuation or from property management, which are more modest in nature.
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The number behind 'recurring': on average 85% of returned LP capital comes back into the next fund.
Himanshu Gupta (Scotiabank); Jay Hennick (Chairman and CEO, Colliers International): Well, again, we'll give you a better outlook in February. But generally speaking, when funds are initiated, it takes a quarter or two for investors to re-up. Remember, as you pay back these investors in every fund, 85% on average return into the following fund. So not only is this a recurring revenue business, but fund to fund, as long as you continue to provide good results for investors, investors tend to re-up into the following, into the subsequent vintages.
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Q4 and Full Year 2022 Earnings Call — Q4 2022
The stress test: with Americas capital markets down 51%, management had to show which earnings actually recur — and still gave a full-year guide. · Open the full transcript →
A rare like-for-like bridge: why the segment's adjusted EBITDA equals the fee-related earnings pure-play managers report.
Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International Group): Fourth quarter investment management revenues were $121 million, up 53%. Excluding passthrough carried interest, revenues were up 87%, driven by acquisitions and management fee growth from increased assets under management. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $53 million, up 88% relative to the comparative quarter. For reference, our reported adjusted EBITDA is equivalent to fee-related earnings, or FRE, that many pure play IM firms report since our IM earnings are generated from recurring management fees.
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Guidance given into a collapsing transaction market, with the cost lever named explicitly.
Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International Group): There are three broad themes to our outlook. One, recurring investment management revenues are expected to grow significantly from continued capital raising for several products we have in the market right now, as well as the annualization of recent acquisitions. Two, recurring outsourcing and advisory operations are expected to continue to grow organically, as well as from the annualization of recent acquisitions. Three, we expect capital markets activity to be down 20%-40% during the first half of 2023, relative to strong prior year comparatives, with a return to year-over-year growth in the second half. […] We expect to maintain disciplined cost control through this period with tight management of discretionary expenses and by gearing our support and administrative staffing levels to match expected revenues.
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An analyst reverse-engineers the guide to flat organic EBITDA; the CFO corrects the acquisition math.
Michael Doumet (Scotiabank); Christian Mayer (CFO, Colliers International Group): I wanted to dig into the 2023 EBITDA guidance just a little bit. My math tells me, you know, assuming $100 million of incremental EBITDA from the deals that you have closed at the midpoint of the 2023 EBITDA guidance essentially implies flat organic EBITDA. First, is that thinking correct? Then second, just broadly is the idea that, you know, leasing O&A and IM effectively offset capital markets. […] A great question, Michael. First off, the EBITDA from the annualization of acquisitions is more like $75 million, not $100 million. You need to dial that into your organic growth assumptions, which will, I think, take those assumptions a bit higher. That's my key observation to your comment.
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The hardest question of the downturn — deals cancelled or merely delayed — answered without spin.
Stephen Sheldon (William Blair and Company); Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers International Group): I guess, are you seeing any signs of deals getting pulled or canceled altogether, or does this truly seem just like a timing delay where transactions are taking longer and where there could be a wall of pent-up activity that could unlock in the second half of this year and potentially into 2024? […] Well, I think it's definitely transactions have been canceled, and for all the reasons you'd expect, interest rates, availability of capital, you know, near term expectation that a building was worth $X six months ago, and it's worth substantially less today. There is huge pent-up demand, at least we see it. We see it in Europe, actually. The smaller transactions, the smaller buildings are moving, are trading. We think there's a big pent-up demand of real estate assets that wanna trade, but they still need a period of time to stabilize, and stabilize both on the on both sides. You know, I think higher quality assets will trade sooner than lesser quality assets. There is a lot of discovery happening. […] It's not just price discovery, it's clients looking at portfolios or ways to acquire two or three assets from a seller who might be under a little bit of financial pressure. I would say our capital markets people are busier today than they've ever been before. It's in an environment where they know the likelihood of near term completing transactions is not as rapid as it was, let's say, a year ago.
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Who the LPs are, and why their money rolls forward from one fund to the next.
Stephen Sheldon (William Blair and Company); Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers International Group): Yeah, I mean, it is broad across all of the asset classes. You know, we're in very attractive spaces, alternate assets, infrastructure, traditional real estate, multifamily, et cetera. We do a little bit of credit as well. You know, the thing that really surprises a lot of people is that there is, in addition to the fact that, and I commented about this in my comments, that we have a lot of perpetual and long-dated funds. You have to remember that the LPs, and for us, most of the LPs are big institutions. We have just under 1,000 LPs. Very little direct to retail at this point although something we're working on. These LPs have known us and our platforms for a long period of time. […] They move from one fund to another. As the closed-ended funds mature and a new fund is initiated, they move from fund to fund. In addition to the fact that they're long-dated strategies, closed-ended funds, it's the same investors that are going from fund to fund to fund. There's, you know, there's a wonderful cadence of recurability to this business, and we're enjoying it.
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Why leasing revenue recurs even in a frozen market: leases have to be renewed regardless of sentiment.
Stephen MacLeod (BMO Capital Markets); Jay Hennick (Global Chairman and CEO, Colliers International Group): Just wanted to turn a little bit to leasing, which you've highlighted in your 2023 outlook, expected to be sort of stable and was stable in Q4. I'm just curious if you can talk a little bit about some of the factors that give you strong visibility into leasing trends in 2023. […] You know, we've said this for a long time. You know, I think if you, if you go back really to the fundamentals of leasing, a lease is five years, 10 years, seven years, whatever the lease term is. During COVID, there was a period of time when landlords, because of the uncertainty, would extend lease terms for a year or two while people, while their tenants got comfortable with, you know, what's the new paradigm, which, by the way, I'm not sure they're comfortable still yet on what the new paradigm is. Ultimately, leases have to be renewed, extended, a move has to take place. So there is a repeatability to leasing that you don't necessarily have, for example, in capital markets.
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More calls
Q1 2026 Earnings Call — Q1 2026 · 30 pages · The Ayesa funding package and a second segment realignment between Commercial Real Estate and Engineering, plus the 31-year per-share compounding record. · Open →
Q3 2025 Earnings Call — Q3 2025 · 30 pages · Scale check on engineering five years after entry: annualized revenue and headcount, alongside the dry powder waiting to be deployed in investment management. · Open →
Q1 2025 Earnings Call — Q1 2025 · 26 pages · AUM crosses $100 billion for the first time, and management explains why it set a deliberately cautious outlook entering the year. · Open →
Q2 2024 Earnings Call — Q2 2024 · 26 pages · Capital markets posts its first growth in 24 months, and the Englobe acquisition lifts recurring earnings to 72% — the inflection point of the recovery. · Open →
Q1 2024 Earnings Call — Q1 2024 · 27 pages · The $300 million equity raise that funded the next wave of acquisitions, and the Mid-Atlantic expansion it paid for. · Open →
Q4 and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call — Q4 2023 · 29 pages · The trough year summed up: how management framed a full year of capital-markets decline and what it staked the 2024 recovery on. · Open →
Q4 and Full Year 2021 Earnings Call — Q4 2021 · 24 pages · The cycle peak for comparison — revenue past $4 billion — and the Basalt and Antirion deals that built the infrastructure and European investment platforms. · Open →
Q3 2021 Earnings Call — Q3 2021 · 27 pages · Where the Enterprise 2025 plan was formally announced, with the original targets every later call is measured against. · Open →