Cushman & Wakefield plc (NYSE:CWK) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 20, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Megan McGrath - Head of Investor Relations

Michelle MacKay - Chief Executive Officer

Neil Johnston - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Anthony Paolone - JPMorgan

Ronald Kamdem - Morgan Stanley

Michael Griffin - Citi

Pat McIlwee - William Blair

Operator

Welcome to the Cushman & Wakefield Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to introduce Megan McGrath, Head of Investor Relations for Cushman & Wakefield. Ms. McGrath, you may begin the conference.

Megan McGrath

Thank you and welcome to Cushman & Wakefield's fourth quarter 2023 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 ir.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 forecasts 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. Reconciliations 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 in the appendix of today's presentation. Also, please note that throughout the presentation, comparisons and growth rates are to the comparable periods of 2022 and in local currency, unless otherwise stated.

And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Michelle MacKay.

Michelle MacKay

Thank you, Megan. It's hard to believe this is just my third earnings call as CEO of Cushman & Wakefield given the pace of change since I became the CEO in July of last year. Since then, we've looked at every aspect of our business. We have updated and mapped out long-term strategic plans for the first time since the IPO in 2018 and we're using data to make tough decisions around spending and capital allocation which will set us all up for future growth. And we took actions toward deleveraging with our 2 refinancing transactions last year and we plan to begin the process of reducing our leverage later this quarter.

You can see the impact of the changes that we've made in our 2023 results. We generated $570 million in adjusted EBITDA and $100 million of free cash flow, up from essentially a breakeven number in 2022. And we're not done. We made extraordinary strides last year in a short period of time, operating with rigor, executing with speed and urgency and never settling, continuing to drive the business forward. And we haven't come this far to stop now.