Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE:JLL) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 3, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Scott Einberger - Head of IR

Christian Ulbrich - President and CEO

Karen Brennan - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Stephen Sheldon - William Blair.

Anthony Paolone - JPMorgan

Michael Griffin - Citi

Jade Rahmani - KBW

Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Ian, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q2 2023 JLL Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Scott Einberger, Head of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Scott Einberger

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to the second quarter 2023 earnings conference call for Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings release along with the 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 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 discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year December 31, 2022, 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.

Christian Ulbrich

Thank you, Scott. Hello, and thank you all for joining our second quarter 2023 earnings call. Conditions impacting global real estate markets were largely unchanged in the second quarter. The consistent tone coming from the U.S. Federal Reserve with regards to inflation and the interest rate tightening cycle has kept real estate markets muted. Overall, higher cost of capital, tighter lending standards and elevated price uncertainty has limited transaction volumes.

During the second quarter, we grew our resilient business lines while also effectively managing through the industry-wide slowdown in investment sales and leasing activity. To put this into perspective, Global Commercial Real Estate Investments totaled $139 billion in the second quarter, a year-over-year decline of 53% according to JLL Research. The second quarter decline in investment dollars was in line with the deceleration seen over the last two quarters, which would support the view that the market has found its bottom with regards to transaction volumes.