NYSE:CWK Cushman & Wakefield Q2 2025 Earnings Results & Report $10.99 -0.40 (-3.48%) As of 12:31 PM Eastern This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more. Cushman & Wakefield beat analyst earnings expectations but missed on revenue in its Q2 2025 results, released August 5, 2025. The company reported EPS of $0.30 versus the $0.22 consensus estimate, while revenue of $1.65 billion fell short of the $2.38 billion estimate by $731.08 million. Revenue increased 7.2% year over year. Research:ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Earnings Announcement Details QuarterQ2 2025Report DateAugust 5, 2025TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call9:00 AM ET Cushman & Wakefield EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.30Consensus EPS $0.22Beat/MissBeat by +$0.08One Year Ago EPS$0.20EPS Beat Rate8 of last 8 quartersCushman & Wakefield Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$1.65 billionExpected Revenue$2.38 billionBeat/MissMissed by -$731.08 millionYoY Revenue Growth+7.20%Upcoming EarningsCushman & Wakefield's Q3 2026 earnings is estimated for Thursday, October 29, 2026, based on past reporting schedules, with a conference call scheduled at 9:00 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Q3 2026 Earnings ReportConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Cushman & Wakefield Q2 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrAugust 5, 2025ShareShareShare This ReportLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Positive Sentiment: In Q2, fee revenue rose 7% to $1.7 B (organic +8%), adjusted EBITDA grew 15% to $162 M, and adjusted EPS jumped 50% to $0.30, prompting an upward revision to full‐year guidance across leasing, capital markets, services, and EPS (25%–35% growth). Positive Sentiment: The capital markets segment posted 26% revenue growth in Q2 (Americas +30%, EMEA +16%, APAC +4%), backed by early-stage talent hires that boast 200% higher annual average revenue than 2024 recruits. Positive Sentiment: Leasing revenue climbed 8% globally (Americas +9%, industrial +8%), with average multi-market occupier contract revenue up 45% year-to-date on increased mandate complexity. Negative Sentiment: APAC leasing revenue fell 3% in Q2, weighed down by difficult year‐ago comparisons and the timing of large deals in Greater China despite growth in India and Australia. Positive Sentiment: The company has prepaid $150 M of debt in Q2 (totaling $400 M over 18 months), cutting gross debt to $2.8 B, lowering interest rates through five repricings, and securing over $45 M in annual interest savings, with net leverage at 3.7x. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallCushman & Wakefield Q2 202500:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipantsPresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Today, and welcome to Cushman & Wakefield's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. If you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Megan McGrath, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am. Megan McGrathSVP of Investor Relations at Cushman & Wakefield00:00:35Thank you, and welcome to Cushman & Wakefield's second quarter 2025 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 forecast 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 and the appendix of today's presentation. Megan McGrathSVP of Investor Relations at Cushman & Wakefield00:01:26Also, please note that throughout the presentation, comparisons and growth rates are to the comparable periods of 2024 and in local currency unless otherwise stated. All revenue figures refer to fee revenue unless otherwise noted, and any reference to organic growth excludes the impact of last year's divestiture of our non-core services business. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Michelle MacKay. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:01:52Thank you, Megan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Two years ago, we set a new course for Cushman & Wakefield, grounded by three clear pillars: protecting our core strengths, operating with discipline, and cultivating avenues for growth. We have now achieved the majority of our three-year targets in that two-year window, well ahead of plan by staying focused, disciplined, and action-oriented. Today, we're pleased to share measurable progress on multiple fronts, outcomes made possible by our collective commitment, resilience, and dedication to our clear vision. We have rebuilt the company from the inside out, and now you will see us take flight. Our results in the first half of this year demonstrate the impact and success of our transformational strategy. We drove top-line growth in nearly every region and service line in both the first and second quarters. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:02:56Year to date, we have driven more than 90 basis points of improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin versus the prior year and increased adjusted EPS by 95% to $0.39 per share. Excluding the immediate period post-COVID recovery in 2021, this is the strongest first-half earnings growth we have experienced since going public in 2018. As Neil will discuss in more detail, we are meaningfully raising our full-year EPS guidance. Our capital markets business is expanding at an accelerating pace, bolstered by improving market dynamics as well as our internal talent initiatives. Capital markets revenue grew by an impressive 26% in the second quarter, and we achieved this level of growth while only being in the very early stages of our talent expansion. Year to date in the Americas, we have recruited capital markets brokers with annual average revenue that is 200% higher than we recruited in all of 2024. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:04:06We are adding professionals across all product types, and we are very enthusiastic about what they will bring to our business once fully ramped. Our leasing business continues to run on all cylinders. We grew revenue in all major asset classes in 2Q, including industrial, which was up 8% in the Americas. Our strength in leasing lies in the superior advice and execution we provide our clients regardless of the economic backdrop. We see this acutely in our multi-market occupier group, where mandate complexity is increasing, driving average contract revenue up 45% in the first half of this year. The turnaround in our services business is in full swing. We achieved 6% fully organic growth in the quarter, an acceleration from first quarter's growth as our teams continue to drive positive momentum. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:05:03We are winning new business and driving incremental growth within our portfolio of existing customers as we more consistently bring to them the full suite of capabilities of the Cushman platform. Our intensified focus on client retention is seeing results, with a 96% annualized retention rate in our GOS business year to date. Alongside our strong second quarter earnings performance, we're announcing that today we have prepaid an additional $150 million in debt, bringing our total debt repayments in the last 18 months to $400 million. Our gross debt has now been reduced from $3.2 billion to $2.8 billion. The combination of this deleveraging with five successful repricings over that same period has resulted in total interest savings of more than $45 million annually. In terms of the overall market, what began to emerge in the second half of 2024 is now clear. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:06:08Leaders of companies, both large and small, are navigating their businesses through market noise and volatility and are making long-term strategic decisions about how they occupy and manage their real estate and infrastructure portfolios. In addition, lender appetites to deploy capital continue to provide borrowers with increasing optionality, better terms, and more flexibility, providing a boost to capital markets activity. Looking ahead, we anticipate continued growth in global leasing markets, ongoing progress in capital markets activity, and increased opportunity to gain market share in our services businesses. Now, I'll hand it over to Neil to go through our second quarter results in more detail. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:06:57Thank you, Michelle, and good morning, everyone. Before I get started, as a quick reminder, all comparisons are to the prior year and in local currency, and organic growth figures exclude the impact of last year's divestiture of our non-core services business. Unless otherwise noted, all revenue figures refer to fee revenue. We're very pleased to report another strong quarter with solid top-line and bottom-line performance fueled by broad momentum across our service lines and continued progress on our growth initiatives. Our capital markets business delivered double-digit year-over-year revenue growth for the third straight quarter, while leasing maintained its positive momentum with high single-digit revenue gains. Organic services revenue growth accelerated to 6%, exceeding our expectations once again. Second quarter fee revenue reached $1.7 billion, growing by 7%, with organic revenue up 8%. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:07:50Adjusted EBITDA rose 15% to $162 million, and our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 75 basis points to 9.5%, reflecting our ability to drive operating leverage while effectively managing expenses to support continued growth. Adjusted EPS grew year over year for the fourth consecutive quarter, rising 50% to $0.30 from $0.20 a year ago. Now, turning to revenue performance by service line, leasing, a core strength of our platform, grew 8% this quarter. In the Americas, leasing rose 9%, with strong demand across all asset types. Office activity remained robust, driven by return to office momentum and new business formation. In industrial, demand remained strong across multiple sectors, including e-commerce, retail, and manufacturing. In EMEA, leasing returned to growth, with revenue up 8%, as we experienced notable strength in Germany and Ireland. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:08:49While APAC saw a 3% decline in revenue, growth in India and Australia helped offset the impact of a tough year-over-year comparison in Greater China due to the timing of a few large deals. Overall, investment in the APAC region remains persistent, and the underlying outsourcing and development trends that have propelled the region's success remain intact, giving us confidence in a near-term return to growth. Turning to capital markets, the Americas delivered 30% growth, driven by healthy fundamentals and strength across asset classes and deal sizes. Multifamily and office transactions were particularly active, and we benefited from an increase in larger deals. Our targeted hiring strategy is paying off, and we're encouraged by the sustained momentum in this business. Internationally, capital markets also performed well, with EMEA up 16%, driven by strength in Spain and Germany, while APAC capital markets grew 4%, with strength in India and Australia. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:09:49In our services segment, we remain on track to meet our guidance of mid-single-digit organic growth for the full year. The Americas posted 5% organic growth, driven by client wins and expansion of current mandates in facilities management and facility services. In EMEA, services grew 11% as our retooled project management business won new contracts in France and Italy. APAC posted 5% services growth, supported by expansion in India, new business in Singapore, and growing project management work in China. Equity method investments were down $4.1 million for the quarter, mainly due to lower performance from our Greystone joint venture. Our one-way partnership in China performed largely in line with last year. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:10:35As noted in our press release this morning, starting this quarter, our adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA now exclude non-cash items related to Greystone, specifically gains recognized from the retention of mortgage servicing rights, or MSRs, changes in fair value of MSRs, and credit loss provisions related to mortgage loans. We believe this change will accurately represent the performance of the underlying business and better aligns with industry practices. On the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with net leverage of 3.7x. Trailing 12 months free cash flow was $126 million, representing an approximately 50% conversion rate. We continue to expect to exit the year at approximately 60%, in line with our free cash flow conversion target of 60% to 80%. We've made significant progress in reducing our interest burden. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:11:28We repaid $25 million of 2030 debt during the quarter, and shortly after quarter end, we repriced approximately $950 million of term loan debt, lowering our applicable interest rate by 50 basis points to SOFA +$275,000, the most favorable credit spread we've had since our IPO in 2018. As Michelle mentioned, today we paid down an additional $150 million of term loan debt using cash on hand. Including this repayment, our gross debt is now down to $2.8 billion. We remain committed to investing in the business while continuing to reduce debt and achieving our net leverage target of 2x to 3x. Our capital structure remains strong and resilient, with no material debt maturities until 2028 and liquidity of $1.7 billion, positioning us well to drive long-term value for shareholders. Turning now to our outlook for the year, we are raising our outlook as follows. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:12:26We now expect full-year leasing revenue to grow 6% to 8%, slightly above our previous forecast. Capital markets revenue is expected to grow in the mid to high teens for the year, also an increase versus our previous expectations. Services remains on track for mid-single-digit organic top-line growth, consistent with our updated guidance last quarter. We anticipate full-year 2025 adjusted EPS growth of 25% to 35%, well ahead of our initial expectations. In summary, we are very pleased with our financial performance and momentum this quarter. We're confident in our strategy and excited about the opportunities ahead. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Michelle. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:13:11Thank you, Neil. Our results for the first half of the year demonstrate that our business and operational performance have kicked into another gear. We are driving strong top-line growth in margin and earnings expansion while simultaneously ramping up growth investments and reducing our leverage. You should continue to expect more from us: enhanced operational performance, continued market share gains, ongoing reduction of debt and interest expense, all contributing to continued momentum as we look forward to 2026 and beyond. If you were waiting to see if we could get it done, you have your answer now. This progress, this quickly, with this many achievements, is all because of the people who work at Cushman & Wakefield. They are not just rowing together; they are competing together to win more, win bigger. At the heart of this is listening to the client and delivering what they need. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:14:15A big thank you to everyone at Cushman & Wakefield. We are a group that never settles, sharing a culture of high-performance expectations and execution for ourselves and for our clients. Let me now hand the call back to the operator for questions. Operator00:14:33Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We will now pause momentarily to assemble the roster. 00:15:06Do you get to choose who you're calling on first, or have you already ordered it? Operator00:15:09Your first question today will come from Stephen Sheldon with William Blair. Please go ahead. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:15:15Hey, thanks, and really nice job here. It seemed like things in EMEA picked up nicely in the quarter. How much of that is being driven by operational improvements, especially under new leadership, versus easier comps and any changes, I guess, in the broader demand environment? How much is it being driven by you guys versus things in the backdrop? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:15:43Thanks for the question, Stephen. We're seeing similar themes play out in Europe as in the U.S. The management change is pretty recent, although it is starting to drive some progress. Despite ongoing macro uncertainty, activity is improving across that region in Q2, particularly strong, as Neil mentioned and was observed for us in a couple of countries in particular, in Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. During Q2, we were the broker for the largest single-asset office leasing deal in the EU since 2020 in Ireland and the largest ever office leasing deal in Barcelona. The office continues to trend higher in EMEA for us, and vacancy remains relatively low, under 10% as of Q2 in 2025. On the capital markets side, momentum is building as well. There's pretty good labor market resilience, inflation returning to target. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:16:41They've had multiple rate cuts over there, as I'm sure you know, bringing the key policy rate down under 2%, effectively back to neutral. All in all, what we're seeing is growing investor confidence across Europe. You compound that with a lot of the operational work and efficiency work that we've been doing around how we run the company, how we manage information and data. When you start to bring these things together, you get the multiplier effect that you're starting to see now. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:17:12Got it. Yeah, that's great to hear. In services, just as we think about the setup for growth in the back half of the year, just to make sure, you'll be past the drag from the divestiture. Does the guidance kind of assume you'll be back to mid-single-digit growth in 3Q and 4Q, even on a reported basis? Am I thinking about that right? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:17:33Yeah, you are, Stephen. That's exactly the right way to think about it. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:17:40Michelle, you talked about 96% annualized retention in GOS so far this year. It seems very strong. Any sense how that metric has looked in the past few years? I guess asked another way, is that a notable improvement from what you've seen historically there? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:17:57Yeah, it's a notable improvement. It's also given us some tools to apply across the services business in general. People have believed historically that something even in the low 90% was compelling, but we're proving that we can really create a much stickier environment for our clients and services. As you can imagine, on the increment, every 100 basis points that we add to that is pretty profitable. Operator00:18:21Your next question today will come from Anthony Paolone with JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Anthony PaoloneExecutive Director at JPMorgan00:18:27Yeah, thanks. Good morning and nice quarter. First question relates to leasing. Can you maybe give us a little bit more context around the various property types and how much runway you see for further growth, maybe in the back half of the year? It seems like we've had a few mixed messages on industrial in particular as it relates to what some of the landlords have been saying versus the brokers. If you could dig a little bit further into leasing in the back half of the year, that'd be great. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:18:58Sure. Let me hit on industrial for you because you're right, there's been some mixed messages out there. We didn't come into the year, I think as a lot of people didn't come into the year with high expectations for industrial leasing. We anticipated mild growth, but the sector continues to surprise to the upside. Year to date for us, it's up in the high single digits, and here's what we're seeing and why we think that's happening. The demand remains solid. While the industrial market cooled from that pandemic-fueled boom, it's still growing in Q2 alone, and the sector recorded almost 30 million sq ft of net absorption. Although the pace has moderated a bit, industrial users are still expanding and taking space. The second thing is lease rollovers unlocking higher transaction values. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:19:45Industrial rents have really soared like we all know since the pandemic, up roughly 50% in the U.S. and even higher in markets like New Jersey, Philly, Inland Empire, places where we're particularly strong. There's just been this flight to quality. As we're all thinking about technologies and AI and things of that nature, what we've seen in the office space, which was a flight to quality, is also true in industrial. There's a flight to quality there. New industrial space, space that's been coming on the market in the last few years, causes people to take a look and realize that if they want to compete, they need to have some of the latest technology and features. They're also making moves. In the very near term, we still think that even with the macro uncertainty, the outlook is pretty solid for the industrial community mid to longer term. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:20:35We feel great about the business overall. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:20:40Okay. Thank you for that. The second question for me is on the services side. Now that you've got it back to that sort of mid-single digit that you talked about, it's hard for us to see profitability, though. Can you maybe comment on just how that's going? You did strategically seem to make some shifts there to not only kind of stabilize the growth rate, but also make more money. Any context around that would be great. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:21:10Sure, Tony. You're right. We're very focused on profitability and margins in the services business. We were particularly focused in Europe, especially around project management, where we restructured that business, and we've seen a nice improvement in margins there. Overall, we see continued expansion of margin in services through two things. First of all, as the revenue goes, we're going to see operating leverage. We remain focused on driving efficiency. Some of our investment on the services side is all around the infrastructure to support services, and what that will do is it'll make the business more efficient. We are focused both on growth, but then also, as you say, profitability underlying that. Operator00:21:54Your next question today will come from Ronald Kamdem with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Ronald KamdemManaging Director at Morgan Stanley00:22:00Hey, great. Congrats on a great execution. I think last quarter we talked about maybe some margin headwinds as you reinvested in the business, but you were still sort of expecting growth to reaccelerate next year versus this year. I guess I would just love some updated commentary about maybe a little bit more about some of the investments you're making for the long term and your thoughts on sort of that margin and growth reacceleration. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:22:25Okay, let me just refresh everybody on our capital allocation and then maybe turn it over to Neil. From the first conference call two years ago, I discussed the importance of us finding our optimal capital allocation strategy, which gets to your point on organic investing. You've seen us focus a lot on debt reduction, and this year also leaning more heavily into internal growth investments like talent, like organic investments that do cause potentially some headwinds. We're always toggling that capital allocation model between those two universes. We've just been doing honestly such a great job operationally that we're already seeing expansion in this quarter in the margin from the work that we've done resetting the operations of the organization. Neil, do you want to add anything to that? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:23:11Yeah, sure. Just, you know, on a very specific note in terms of guidance, as Michelle said, you know, we're building off a very, very strong first half. We do expect that top-line momentum to continue as a result of the investments we're making. We will see the margin in the second half be slightly below the margin we saw in the first half as a result of a slight increase in investment spend in the back half of the year, but are still expecting margin expansion for the full year. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:23:44Great. My second or follow-up would just be going back to the capital markets reacceleration in the quarter. Maybe can you comment on trends in July at this point and what you're hearing in terms of potential tariff impact, or do they even matter anymore? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:24:04I think tariffs have been disruptive, but they've yet to show that they are disruptive. Capital market flow over the month of July was still compelling and driving us in the same direction. Operator00:24:20Your next question today will come from Seth Bergey with Citi. Please go ahead. Seth BergeySenior Analyst at Citi00:24:26Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just kind of following up on that, in your conversations with clients, what are they thinking about as they think about their leasing needs for additional space or underwriting transactions? Are they looking through tariffs or expecting Fed rate cuts? I'm just trying to understand the puts and takes of what your clients are thinking about for the back half of the year. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:24:55Yeah, business leaders, as I said in my prerecorded script, continue to make decisions. I think for anyone out there running a company, the macro uncertainty has now been a constant throughout the year, and our business has performed really well under it because people continue to make decisions. What we see for the second half of the year is just a lot of the same. Our pipelines are strong. That gives us confidence heading into the second half of the year. Those same uncertainty forces that supported performance in the first half remain in place. As I said, I think the tariffs have been disruptive. They create volatility, but you haven't seen destruction from them yet. Leaders of the businesses have been tuned into the fact that they have to be able to make decisions through the noise. How does that impact leasing? They're still striking leasing deals. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:25:44They're still doing capital markets deals. We believe this is going to continue. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:25:50Great, thank you. Operator00:25:55Your next question today will come from Julien Blouin with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Julien BlouinVP of Real Estate Investment Research at Goldman Sachs00:26:01Hi, thank you for taking my question. Congrats on the quarter, team. In terms of the turnaround in EMEA services, it sounds like project management saw some real wins in France and Italy. I just want to get a sense of how much of that is improvements you've made, kind of going back to a question I was asked earlier. How much visibility do you have in continued wins in EMEA going forward? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:26:33Yeah, look, project management and services in general in Europe has been a focus area for us. We see a lot of opportunity there. We have a very strong team there. Project management does tend to be slightly shorter-term in nature than the long contracts we see in some of our other services businesses. We're very pleased with the progress we're making there. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:26:57Thank you. Maybe on the margin side, again in EMEA, margins doubled year-over-year. I guess how much of that was driven by incrementals on the brokerage side versus how much of that was the services side and some of the changes that you've made to sort of unprofitable services contracts? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:27:20Yeah, in EMEA, we've worked very hard on margins and efficiency. We've got that platform to where we want it. I think going forward, the focus is going to turn from really restructuring the platform to growth on the top line. You will see continued margin expansion, but less around platform costs. I think we've done that hard work, which means we can then create operating leverage as we grow that business. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:27:50I would also just add with the restructuring and putting new teams in place, we have a different mindset around driving growth versus just one of, say, operational rigor. We have put ourselves in a position to have both skill sets. As we grow, that margin expansion will happen naturally. Operator00:28:11Your next question today will come from Peter Abramowitz with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Peter AbramowitzEquity Research Senior Vice President at Jefferies00:28:20Yes, thank you. Just wanted to dig into the leasing for a second. I know maybe you're kind of catching up in terms of the office leasing growth here, but do you hit tough comps at any point in the back half of the year? I guess just how does that factor into your outlook for the rest of the year? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:28:40Sure. We did see the pickup in leasing beginning Q3 last year. We had a very strong Q3 in leasing. I think we're up around 13%. We will face those comps as we look to the back half of the year. At the same time, the momentum we're seeing in leasing, the very early revenue numbers for July all look good. We feel pretty good about our guidance of seeing the same sort of momentum in the second half that we saw in the first half. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:29:11Okay, got it. Also, on the office side, I guess could you just comment? I think there's a lot of headlines and a lot of news stories out there about certain markets kind of running out of trophy space and top-end space. Does it seem like the leasing recovery has kind of proliferated to the rest of the market, kind of sub-trophy or sub-top-line space? What's your view on that? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:29:35Exactly what you're saying. We're also seeing, if you talk about something like New York as the original kind of place of strength, you're seeing it now in Boston, Dallas, Miami, Houston. Non-gateway markets like Phoenix, San Diego, and Toronto were also strong for us. The regional strength is broadening as well. Yes, you're seeing the move into what you would consider, say, AAA Class A space to what you might consider A-minus space as the space in the market's been absorbed. Operator00:30:09Your next question today will come from Mitch Germain with Citizens. Please go ahead. Mitch GermainManaging Director at Citizens00:30:15Thank you. Congrats on the quarter. I think, Michelle, you termed it early stages of talent expansion. I'm curious, you know, how broad-based is some of the hiring effort from a maybe business line or a global perspective? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:30:31Yeah, it's broad-based in every direction, frankly. We've been both reshuffling inside our own house, putting different talent in different positions. We've reorganized. We did a complete reorganization in the fall of the Americas advisory business to better connect the organization and pull up talent and new leaders into many senior-level seats, individuals who are now drivers of growth. In addition to that, in terms of brokers, as I shared in my prepared remarks, we've hired capital markets brokers with 200% more average revenue than we did in the entirety of 2024. For leasing, that number is also 150% higher. In terms of the number of teams there, this equates to 10 more capital markets teams for a total of 28 new teams since we started to ramp up our hiring. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:31:22What I should also mention here, which you didn't ask, is that we're getting more productivity per existing broker as well. We're focusing, yes, on capital markets, yes, on leasing, but also on services talent and talent across the board. Mitch GermainManaging Director at Citizens00:31:37Great, that's it for me. Thanks. Operator00:31:42This will conclude our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Michelle MacKay for any closing remarks. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:31:50Thank you, everyone, and we look forward to speaking to you again on our third quarter earnings call. Operator00:31:57The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesMegan McGrathSVP of Investor RelationsMichelle MacKayCEONeil JohnstonCFOAnalystsAnthony PaoloneExecutive Director at JPMorganJulien BlouinVP of Real Estate Investment Research at Goldman SachsMitch GermainManaging Director at CitizensPeter AbramowitzEquity Research Senior Vice President at JefferiesRonald KamdemManaging Director at Morgan StanleySeth BergeySenior Analyst at CitiStephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William BlairPowered by Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Cushman & Wakefield Q2 2025 Earnings FAQ Did Cushman & Wakefield beat earnings estimates for Q2 2025? Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE:CWK) reported earnings of $0.30 per share for Q2 2025, beating the consensus estimate of $0.22. The report was announced on Tuesday, August 5, 2025. What was Cushman & Wakefield's revenue for Q2 2025? Cushman & Wakefield reported revenue of $1.65 billion for Q2 2025, against a consensus estimate of $2.38 billion. Where can I read Cushman & Wakefield's Q2 2025 earnings call transcript? The full Cushman & Wakefield Q2 2025 earnings conference call transcript is published on this page, including prepared remarks and the analyst Q&A session, along with the participants who spoke on the call. When is Cushman & Wakefield's next earnings date? Cushman & Wakefield's next earnings date is estimated for Thursday, October 29, 2026. MarketBeat tracks confirmed and estimated earnings dates for Cushman & Wakefield on the company's earnings history page. Cushman & Wakefield Earnings HeadlinesCUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD : APPOINTS MARZIA GIULIANI AS HEAD OF BUSINESS ENABLEMENT ITALY20 minutes ago | marketscreener.comMCushman & Wakefield : The United States and India Lead Global Flexible Office Demand Amid Growing Market Maturity20 minutes ago | marketscreener.comMWhy major institutions are piling into this digital asset nowBlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Fidelity are reportedly accumulating a scarce blockchain asset - one that gets burned with every transaction on what analysts are calling America's new financial grid. The Nasdaq has received SEC approval to move stocks onto blockchain rails, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink dedicated his entire 2026 annual letter to this infrastructure shift. 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Email Address About Cushman & WakefieldCushman & Wakefield (NYSE:CWK) (NYSE: CWK) is a global commercial real estate services company that advises property owners, occupiers, investors and developers. Its services cover office, industrial, retail, hospitality, multifamily and other commercial property sectors. The company provides leasing and tenant representation, capital markets and investment sales, valuation and advisory services, property and facilities management, project and development services, and consulting. Cushman & Wakefield also supports businesses with workplace strategy, portfolio planning and other real estate-related services. The company traces its origins to 1917, when Cushman & Wakefield was established in New York. It serves clients through operations across major real estate markets in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. Cushman & Wakefield became a publicly traded company in 2018 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.View Cushman & Wakefield ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Latest Articles Don’t Get NVIDIA’s Reflection AI Interest Wrong: Its Moat Could DeepenA Chinese Rival Just Spooked Memory Stocks—How Worried Should Micron Investors Be?Albertsons Is Betting on a Turnaround—But Will It Pay Off?PepsiCo's Earnings Beat Masks a Bigger Problem With Its North American BusinessTax Credit Turmoil: Why Enphase and SolarEdge Face a Tough RoadSurgical Precision, Sustainable Returns: Johnson & Johnson Secures Its Cash Flow RunwayJPMorgan Earnings Miss Estimates But Reveal Broad-Based Strength Upcoming Earnings Interactive Brokers Group (10/15/2026)Marsh & McLennan Companies (10/15/2026)The PNC Financial Services Group (10/15/2026)Charles Schwab (10/15/2026)U.S. Bancorp (10/15/2026)Prologis (10/15/2026)Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (10/15/2026)Truist Financial (10/16/2026)Travelers Companies (10/16/2026)HDFC Bank (10/17/2026) Unlock superior investment research and tools. 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PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Today, and welcome to Cushman & Wakefield's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. If you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Megan McGrath, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am. Megan McGrathSVP of Investor Relations at Cushman & Wakefield00:00:35Thank you, and welcome to Cushman & Wakefield's second quarter 2025 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 forecast 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 and the appendix of today's presentation. Megan McGrathSVP of Investor Relations at Cushman & Wakefield00:01:26Also, please note that throughout the presentation, comparisons and growth rates are to the comparable periods of 2024 and in local currency unless otherwise stated. All revenue figures refer to fee revenue unless otherwise noted, and any reference to organic growth excludes the impact of last year's divestiture of our non-core services business. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Michelle MacKay. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:01:52Thank you, Megan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Two years ago, we set a new course for Cushman & Wakefield, grounded by three clear pillars: protecting our core strengths, operating with discipline, and cultivating avenues for growth. We have now achieved the majority of our three-year targets in that two-year window, well ahead of plan by staying focused, disciplined, and action-oriented. Today, we're pleased to share measurable progress on multiple fronts, outcomes made possible by our collective commitment, resilience, and dedication to our clear vision. We have rebuilt the company from the inside out, and now you will see us take flight. Our results in the first half of this year demonstrate the impact and success of our transformational strategy. We drove top-line growth in nearly every region and service line in both the first and second quarters. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:02:56Year to date, we have driven more than 90 basis points of improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin versus the prior year and increased adjusted EPS by 95% to $0.39 per share. Excluding the immediate period post-COVID recovery in 2021, this is the strongest first-half earnings growth we have experienced since going public in 2018. As Neil will discuss in more detail, we are meaningfully raising our full-year EPS guidance. Our capital markets business is expanding at an accelerating pace, bolstered by improving market dynamics as well as our internal talent initiatives. Capital markets revenue grew by an impressive 26% in the second quarter, and we achieved this level of growth while only being in the very early stages of our talent expansion. Year to date in the Americas, we have recruited capital markets brokers with annual average revenue that is 200% higher than we recruited in all of 2024. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:04:06We are adding professionals across all product types, and we are very enthusiastic about what they will bring to our business once fully ramped. Our leasing business continues to run on all cylinders. We grew revenue in all major asset classes in 2Q, including industrial, which was up 8% in the Americas. Our strength in leasing lies in the superior advice and execution we provide our clients regardless of the economic backdrop. We see this acutely in our multi-market occupier group, where mandate complexity is increasing, driving average contract revenue up 45% in the first half of this year. The turnaround in our services business is in full swing. We achieved 6% fully organic growth in the quarter, an acceleration from first quarter's growth as our teams continue to drive positive momentum. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:05:03We are winning new business and driving incremental growth within our portfolio of existing customers as we more consistently bring to them the full suite of capabilities of the Cushman platform. Our intensified focus on client retention is seeing results, with a 96% annualized retention rate in our GOS business year to date. Alongside our strong second quarter earnings performance, we're announcing that today we have prepaid an additional $150 million in debt, bringing our total debt repayments in the last 18 months to $400 million. Our gross debt has now been reduced from $3.2 billion to $2.8 billion. The combination of this deleveraging with five successful repricings over that same period has resulted in total interest savings of more than $45 million annually. In terms of the overall market, what began to emerge in the second half of 2024 is now clear. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:06:08Leaders of companies, both large and small, are navigating their businesses through market noise and volatility and are making long-term strategic decisions about how they occupy and manage their real estate and infrastructure portfolios. In addition, lender appetites to deploy capital continue to provide borrowers with increasing optionality, better terms, and more flexibility, providing a boost to capital markets activity. Looking ahead, we anticipate continued growth in global leasing markets, ongoing progress in capital markets activity, and increased opportunity to gain market share in our services businesses. Now, I'll hand it over to Neil to go through our second quarter results in more detail. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:06:57Thank you, Michelle, and good morning, everyone. Before I get started, as a quick reminder, all comparisons are to the prior year and in local currency, and organic growth figures exclude the impact of last year's divestiture of our non-core services business. Unless otherwise noted, all revenue figures refer to fee revenue. We're very pleased to report another strong quarter with solid top-line and bottom-line performance fueled by broad momentum across our service lines and continued progress on our growth initiatives. Our capital markets business delivered double-digit year-over-year revenue growth for the third straight quarter, while leasing maintained its positive momentum with high single-digit revenue gains. Organic services revenue growth accelerated to 6%, exceeding our expectations once again. Second quarter fee revenue reached $1.7 billion, growing by 7%, with organic revenue up 8%. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:07:50Adjusted EBITDA rose 15% to $162 million, and our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 75 basis points to 9.5%, reflecting our ability to drive operating leverage while effectively managing expenses to support continued growth. Adjusted EPS grew year over year for the fourth consecutive quarter, rising 50% to $0.30 from $0.20 a year ago. Now, turning to revenue performance by service line, leasing, a core strength of our platform, grew 8% this quarter. In the Americas, leasing rose 9%, with strong demand across all asset types. Office activity remained robust, driven by return to office momentum and new business formation. In industrial, demand remained strong across multiple sectors, including e-commerce, retail, and manufacturing. In EMEA, leasing returned to growth, with revenue up 8%, as we experienced notable strength in Germany and Ireland. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:08:49While APAC saw a 3% decline in revenue, growth in India and Australia helped offset the impact of a tough year-over-year comparison in Greater China due to the timing of a few large deals. Overall, investment in the APAC region remains persistent, and the underlying outsourcing and development trends that have propelled the region's success remain intact, giving us confidence in a near-term return to growth. Turning to capital markets, the Americas delivered 30% growth, driven by healthy fundamentals and strength across asset classes and deal sizes. Multifamily and office transactions were particularly active, and we benefited from an increase in larger deals. Our targeted hiring strategy is paying off, and we're encouraged by the sustained momentum in this business. Internationally, capital markets also performed well, with EMEA up 16%, driven by strength in Spain and Germany, while APAC capital markets grew 4%, with strength in India and Australia. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:09:49In our services segment, we remain on track to meet our guidance of mid-single-digit organic growth for the full year. The Americas posted 5% organic growth, driven by client wins and expansion of current mandates in facilities management and facility services. In EMEA, services grew 11% as our retooled project management business won new contracts in France and Italy. APAC posted 5% services growth, supported by expansion in India, new business in Singapore, and growing project management work in China. Equity method investments were down $4.1 million for the quarter, mainly due to lower performance from our Greystone joint venture. Our one-way partnership in China performed largely in line with last year. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:10:35As noted in our press release this morning, starting this quarter, our adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA now exclude non-cash items related to Greystone, specifically gains recognized from the retention of mortgage servicing rights, or MSRs, changes in fair value of MSRs, and credit loss provisions related to mortgage loans. We believe this change will accurately represent the performance of the underlying business and better aligns with industry practices. On the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with net leverage of 3.7x. Trailing 12 months free cash flow was $126 million, representing an approximately 50% conversion rate. We continue to expect to exit the year at approximately 60%, in line with our free cash flow conversion target of 60% to 80%. We've made significant progress in reducing our interest burden. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:11:28We repaid $25 million of 2030 debt during the quarter, and shortly after quarter end, we repriced approximately $950 million of term loan debt, lowering our applicable interest rate by 50 basis points to SOFA +$275,000, the most favorable credit spread we've had since our IPO in 2018. As Michelle mentioned, today we paid down an additional $150 million of term loan debt using cash on hand. Including this repayment, our gross debt is now down to $2.8 billion. We remain committed to investing in the business while continuing to reduce debt and achieving our net leverage target of 2x to 3x. Our capital structure remains strong and resilient, with no material debt maturities until 2028 and liquidity of $1.7 billion, positioning us well to drive long-term value for shareholders. Turning now to our outlook for the year, we are raising our outlook as follows. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:12:26We now expect full-year leasing revenue to grow 6% to 8%, slightly above our previous forecast. Capital markets revenue is expected to grow in the mid to high teens for the year, also an increase versus our previous expectations. Services remains on track for mid-single-digit organic top-line growth, consistent with our updated guidance last quarter. We anticipate full-year 2025 adjusted EPS growth of 25% to 35%, well ahead of our initial expectations. In summary, we are very pleased with our financial performance and momentum this quarter. We're confident in our strategy and excited about the opportunities ahead. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Michelle. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:13:11Thank you, Neil. Our results for the first half of the year demonstrate that our business and operational performance have kicked into another gear. We are driving strong top-line growth in margin and earnings expansion while simultaneously ramping up growth investments and reducing our leverage. You should continue to expect more from us: enhanced operational performance, continued market share gains, ongoing reduction of debt and interest expense, all contributing to continued momentum as we look forward to 2026 and beyond. If you were waiting to see if we could get it done, you have your answer now. This progress, this quickly, with this many achievements, is all because of the people who work at Cushman & Wakefield. They are not just rowing together; they are competing together to win more, win bigger. At the heart of this is listening to the client and delivering what they need. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:14:15A big thank you to everyone at Cushman & Wakefield. We are a group that never settles, sharing a culture of high-performance expectations and execution for ourselves and for our clients. Let me now hand the call back to the operator for questions. Operator00:14:33Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We will now pause momentarily to assemble the roster. 00:15:06Do you get to choose who you're calling on first, or have you already ordered it? Operator00:15:09Your first question today will come from Stephen Sheldon with William Blair. Please go ahead. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:15:15Hey, thanks, and really nice job here. It seemed like things in EMEA picked up nicely in the quarter. How much of that is being driven by operational improvements, especially under new leadership, versus easier comps and any changes, I guess, in the broader demand environment? How much is it being driven by you guys versus things in the backdrop? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:15:43Thanks for the question, Stephen. We're seeing similar themes play out in Europe as in the U.S. The management change is pretty recent, although it is starting to drive some progress. Despite ongoing macro uncertainty, activity is improving across that region in Q2, particularly strong, as Neil mentioned and was observed for us in a couple of countries in particular, in Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. During Q2, we were the broker for the largest single-asset office leasing deal in the EU since 2020 in Ireland and the largest ever office leasing deal in Barcelona. The office continues to trend higher in EMEA for us, and vacancy remains relatively low, under 10% as of Q2 in 2025. On the capital markets side, momentum is building as well. There's pretty good labor market resilience, inflation returning to target. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:16:41They've had multiple rate cuts over there, as I'm sure you know, bringing the key policy rate down under 2%, effectively back to neutral. All in all, what we're seeing is growing investor confidence across Europe. You compound that with a lot of the operational work and efficiency work that we've been doing around how we run the company, how we manage information and data. When you start to bring these things together, you get the multiplier effect that you're starting to see now. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:17:12Got it. Yeah, that's great to hear. In services, just as we think about the setup for growth in the back half of the year, just to make sure, you'll be past the drag from the divestiture. Does the guidance kind of assume you'll be back to mid-single-digit growth in 3Q and 4Q, even on a reported basis? Am I thinking about that right? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:17:33Yeah, you are, Stephen. That's exactly the right way to think about it. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:17:40Michelle, you talked about 96% annualized retention in GOS so far this year. It seems very strong. Any sense how that metric has looked in the past few years? I guess asked another way, is that a notable improvement from what you've seen historically there? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:17:57Yeah, it's a notable improvement. It's also given us some tools to apply across the services business in general. People have believed historically that something even in the low 90% was compelling, but we're proving that we can really create a much stickier environment for our clients and services. As you can imagine, on the increment, every 100 basis points that we add to that is pretty profitable. Operator00:18:21Your next question today will come from Anthony Paolone with JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Anthony PaoloneExecutive Director at JPMorgan00:18:27Yeah, thanks. Good morning and nice quarter. First question relates to leasing. Can you maybe give us a little bit more context around the various property types and how much runway you see for further growth, maybe in the back half of the year? It seems like we've had a few mixed messages on industrial in particular as it relates to what some of the landlords have been saying versus the brokers. If you could dig a little bit further into leasing in the back half of the year, that'd be great. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:18:58Sure. Let me hit on industrial for you because you're right, there's been some mixed messages out there. We didn't come into the year, I think as a lot of people didn't come into the year with high expectations for industrial leasing. We anticipated mild growth, but the sector continues to surprise to the upside. Year to date for us, it's up in the high single digits, and here's what we're seeing and why we think that's happening. The demand remains solid. While the industrial market cooled from that pandemic-fueled boom, it's still growing in Q2 alone, and the sector recorded almost 30 million sq ft of net absorption. Although the pace has moderated a bit, industrial users are still expanding and taking space. The second thing is lease rollovers unlocking higher transaction values. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:19:45Industrial rents have really soared like we all know since the pandemic, up roughly 50% in the U.S. and even higher in markets like New Jersey, Philly, Inland Empire, places where we're particularly strong. There's just been this flight to quality. As we're all thinking about technologies and AI and things of that nature, what we've seen in the office space, which was a flight to quality, is also true in industrial. There's a flight to quality there. New industrial space, space that's been coming on the market in the last few years, causes people to take a look and realize that if they want to compete, they need to have some of the latest technology and features. They're also making moves. In the very near term, we still think that even with the macro uncertainty, the outlook is pretty solid for the industrial community mid to longer term. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:20:35We feel great about the business overall. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:20:40Okay. Thank you for that. The second question for me is on the services side. Now that you've got it back to that sort of mid-single digit that you talked about, it's hard for us to see profitability, though. Can you maybe comment on just how that's going? You did strategically seem to make some shifts there to not only kind of stabilize the growth rate, but also make more money. Any context around that would be great. Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:21:10Sure, Tony. You're right. We're very focused on profitability and margins in the services business. We were particularly focused in Europe, especially around project management, where we restructured that business, and we've seen a nice improvement in margins there. Overall, we see continued expansion of margin in services through two things. First of all, as the revenue goes, we're going to see operating leverage. We remain focused on driving efficiency. Some of our investment on the services side is all around the infrastructure to support services, and what that will do is it'll make the business more efficient. We are focused both on growth, but then also, as you say, profitability underlying that. Operator00:21:54Your next question today will come from Ronald Kamdem with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Ronald KamdemManaging Director at Morgan Stanley00:22:00Hey, great. Congrats on a great execution. I think last quarter we talked about maybe some margin headwinds as you reinvested in the business, but you were still sort of expecting growth to reaccelerate next year versus this year. I guess I would just love some updated commentary about maybe a little bit more about some of the investments you're making for the long term and your thoughts on sort of that margin and growth reacceleration. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:22:25Okay, let me just refresh everybody on our capital allocation and then maybe turn it over to Neil. From the first conference call two years ago, I discussed the importance of us finding our optimal capital allocation strategy, which gets to your point on organic investing. You've seen us focus a lot on debt reduction, and this year also leaning more heavily into internal growth investments like talent, like organic investments that do cause potentially some headwinds. We're always toggling that capital allocation model between those two universes. We've just been doing honestly such a great job operationally that we're already seeing expansion in this quarter in the margin from the work that we've done resetting the operations of the organization. Neil, do you want to add anything to that? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:23:11Yeah, sure. Just, you know, on a very specific note in terms of guidance, as Michelle said, you know, we're building off a very, very strong first half. We do expect that top-line momentum to continue as a result of the investments we're making. We will see the margin in the second half be slightly below the margin we saw in the first half as a result of a slight increase in investment spend in the back half of the year, but are still expecting margin expansion for the full year. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:23:44Great. My second or follow-up would just be going back to the capital markets reacceleration in the quarter. Maybe can you comment on trends in July at this point and what you're hearing in terms of potential tariff impact, or do they even matter anymore? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:24:04I think tariffs have been disruptive, but they've yet to show that they are disruptive. Capital market flow over the month of July was still compelling and driving us in the same direction. Operator00:24:20Your next question today will come from Seth Bergey with Citi. Please go ahead. Seth BergeySenior Analyst at Citi00:24:26Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just kind of following up on that, in your conversations with clients, what are they thinking about as they think about their leasing needs for additional space or underwriting transactions? Are they looking through tariffs or expecting Fed rate cuts? I'm just trying to understand the puts and takes of what your clients are thinking about for the back half of the year. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:24:55Yeah, business leaders, as I said in my prerecorded script, continue to make decisions. I think for anyone out there running a company, the macro uncertainty has now been a constant throughout the year, and our business has performed really well under it because people continue to make decisions. What we see for the second half of the year is just a lot of the same. Our pipelines are strong. That gives us confidence heading into the second half of the year. Those same uncertainty forces that supported performance in the first half remain in place. As I said, I think the tariffs have been disruptive. They create volatility, but you haven't seen destruction from them yet. Leaders of the businesses have been tuned into the fact that they have to be able to make decisions through the noise. How does that impact leasing? They're still striking leasing deals. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:25:44They're still doing capital markets deals. We believe this is going to continue. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:25:50Great, thank you. Operator00:25:55Your next question today will come from Julien Blouin with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Julien BlouinVP of Real Estate Investment Research at Goldman Sachs00:26:01Hi, thank you for taking my question. Congrats on the quarter, team. In terms of the turnaround in EMEA services, it sounds like project management saw some real wins in France and Italy. I just want to get a sense of how much of that is improvements you've made, kind of going back to a question I was asked earlier. How much visibility do you have in continued wins in EMEA going forward? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:26:33Yeah, look, project management and services in general in Europe has been a focus area for us. We see a lot of opportunity there. We have a very strong team there. Project management does tend to be slightly shorter-term in nature than the long contracts we see in some of our other services businesses. We're very pleased with the progress we're making there. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:26:57Thank you. Maybe on the margin side, again in EMEA, margins doubled year-over-year. I guess how much of that was driven by incrementals on the brokerage side versus how much of that was the services side and some of the changes that you've made to sort of unprofitable services contracts? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:27:20Yeah, in EMEA, we've worked very hard on margins and efficiency. We've got that platform to where we want it. I think going forward, the focus is going to turn from really restructuring the platform to growth on the top line. You will see continued margin expansion, but less around platform costs. I think we've done that hard work, which means we can then create operating leverage as we grow that business. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:27:50I would also just add with the restructuring and putting new teams in place, we have a different mindset around driving growth versus just one of, say, operational rigor. We have put ourselves in a position to have both skill sets. As we grow, that margin expansion will happen naturally. Operator00:28:11Your next question today will come from Peter Abramowitz with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Peter AbramowitzEquity Research Senior Vice President at Jefferies00:28:20Yes, thank you. Just wanted to dig into the leasing for a second. I know maybe you're kind of catching up in terms of the office leasing growth here, but do you hit tough comps at any point in the back half of the year? I guess just how does that factor into your outlook for the rest of the year? Neil JohnstonCFO at Cushman & Wakefield00:28:40Sure. We did see the pickup in leasing beginning Q3 last year. We had a very strong Q3 in leasing. I think we're up around 13%. We will face those comps as we look to the back half of the year. At the same time, the momentum we're seeing in leasing, the very early revenue numbers for July all look good. We feel pretty good about our guidance of seeing the same sort of momentum in the second half that we saw in the first half. Stephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William Blair00:29:11Okay, got it. Also, on the office side, I guess could you just comment? I think there's a lot of headlines and a lot of news stories out there about certain markets kind of running out of trophy space and top-end space. Does it seem like the leasing recovery has kind of proliferated to the rest of the market, kind of sub-trophy or sub-top-line space? What's your view on that? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:29:35Exactly what you're saying. We're also seeing, if you talk about something like New York as the original kind of place of strength, you're seeing it now in Boston, Dallas, Miami, Houston. Non-gateway markets like Phoenix, San Diego, and Toronto were also strong for us. The regional strength is broadening as well. Yes, you're seeing the move into what you would consider, say, AAA Class A space to what you might consider A-minus space as the space in the market's been absorbed. Operator00:30:09Your next question today will come from Mitch Germain with Citizens. Please go ahead. Mitch GermainManaging Director at Citizens00:30:15Thank you. Congrats on the quarter. I think, Michelle, you termed it early stages of talent expansion. I'm curious, you know, how broad-based is some of the hiring effort from a maybe business line or a global perspective? Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:30:31Yeah, it's broad-based in every direction, frankly. We've been both reshuffling inside our own house, putting different talent in different positions. We've reorganized. We did a complete reorganization in the fall of the Americas advisory business to better connect the organization and pull up talent and new leaders into many senior-level seats, individuals who are now drivers of growth. In addition to that, in terms of brokers, as I shared in my prepared remarks, we've hired capital markets brokers with 200% more average revenue than we did in the entirety of 2024. For leasing, that number is also 150% higher. In terms of the number of teams there, this equates to 10 more capital markets teams for a total of 28 new teams since we started to ramp up our hiring. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:31:22What I should also mention here, which you didn't ask, is that we're getting more productivity per existing broker as well. We're focusing, yes, on capital markets, yes, on leasing, but also on services talent and talent across the board. Mitch GermainManaging Director at Citizens00:31:37Great, that's it for me. Thanks. Operator00:31:42This will conclude our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Michelle MacKay for any closing remarks. Michelle MacKayCEO at Cushman & Wakefield00:31:50Thank you, everyone, and we look forward to speaking to you again on our third quarter earnings call. Operator00:31:57The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.Read moreParticipantsExecutivesMegan McGrathSVP of Investor RelationsMichelle MacKayCEONeil JohnstonCFOAnalystsAnthony PaoloneExecutive Director at JPMorganJulien BlouinVP of Real Estate Investment Research at Goldman SachsMitch GermainManaging Director at CitizensPeter AbramowitzEquity Research Senior Vice President at JefferiesRonald KamdemManaging Director at Morgan StanleySeth BergeySenior Analyst at CitiStephen SheldonEquity Research Analyst at William BlairPowered by