Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE:JLL) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 27, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Corporate Participants

Scott Einberger - Head of Investor Relations

Christian Ulbrich - President and Chief Executive Officer

Karen Brennan - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Michael Griffin - Citi

Matt Filek - William Blair

Jade Rahmani - KBW

Patrick O'Shaughnessy - Raymond James

Operator

Thanks for standing by and welcome to the Q4 2023 JLL Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to welcome Scott Einberger, Investor Relations Officer to begin the call. Scott, over to you.

Scott Einberger

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call for Jones Lang LaSalle, Incorporated.

Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings release along with a slide presentation, an 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 soon to be filed Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year December 31, 2023, and then 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 welcome to our fourth quarter 2023 earnings call.

JLL's fourth quarter financial results reflect the strengths of our resilient business lines, which grew a combined 9% in the quarter. This growth helped offset the soft transaction market our industry has experienced over the past year. Sentiment in the global real estate market has improved since our last earnings call in early November, a result of the drop in the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield, and a growing consensus that interest rates have reached peak levels across most major economies. While falling debt cost will lead to a more predictable operating environment going forward, it will take time and prolonged stability for pricing to fully adjust. The path forward may be uneven, but we are confident that bid-ask spreads will normalize and transaction volumes will improve.