Colliers International Group Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 30, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Strong second-quarter results: Consolidated revenue and net revenue each rose 16% to $1.6 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively, while adjusted EBITDA increased 14% to $205 million and adjusted EPS rose 6% to $1.83.
  • Positive Sentiment: Commercial real estate activity recovered broadly, with Capital Markets and leasing revenue each up 23%, supported by stronger transaction activity, industrial-sector demand, market-share gains, and improving financing conditions. Management expects roughly 15% Capital Markets growth and mid-single-digit leasing growth in the third quarter.
  • Positive Sentiment: Engineering momentum remains strong: revenue increased 27%, including 5% internal growth, and the segment has a 12-month backlog. The Ayesa acquisition adds higher-margin, less-seasonal operations and expands capabilities in areas such as water, desalination, and marine engineering.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Investment Management revenue grew 15 and fundraising reached $2.2 billion in the quarter, with management maintaining its 2026 fundraising target of $6 billion-$9 billion. However, platform-building and integration costs reduced the segment margin to 36.5%; management expects margins to recover to the low-40% range in 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: Net leverage ended the quarter at 2.8x after the Ayesa acquisition, but management expects it to decline to approximately 2.3x by year-end versus a longer-term target range of 1.5x-2.0x. If leverage falls as expected, Colliers may repurchase shares at current valuations while continuing to pursue acquisitions.
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Earnings Conference Call
Colliers International Group Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Welcome to the Colliers International Second Quarter Investors Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. Legal counsel requires us to advise that the discussion scheduled to take place today may contain forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results may be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements contemplated in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the company's annual information form as filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and in the company's annual report on Form 40-F, as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. Today is Thursday, July 30, 2026.

Operator

At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to the Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jay Hennick. Please go ahead, sir.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Thank you, operator, and good morning. I'm Jay Hennick, Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Colliers. Joining me today is Christian Mayer, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Executive of Colliers Commercial Real Estate. Today's website and presentation materials are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Colliers delivered another strong quarter with double-digit revenue growth across all three platforms, healthy internal growth, and continued improvement in earnings quality. In Commercial Real Estate, we are seeing a broader recovery across our markets. Capital Markets and leasing revenues each increased by more than 20%, supported by improving transaction activity, better financing conditions, and market share gains in most of our major markets. Engineering continues to be an important strategic differentiator for Colliers. Revenue increased 30%, driven by strong demand across critical infrastructure, transportation, water, property, and buildings.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

The acquisition of Ayesa expanded our global capabilities and strengthened our position across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Australia. Engineering gives Colliers recurring revenue, stronger visibility, and new ways to grow our enterprise. Harrison Street continued to add strength and differentiation as well, with assets under management reaching $110 billion and revenues increasing by 17%. 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. Together, the recovery in Commercial Real Estate, the growth of Engineering, and the expansion of our Harrison Street business are changing the quality and composition of our earnings.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

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.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

After the fact, we can deliver leasing, sales, facility management, and other advisory services as those facilities come on stream. That same opportunity exists across many other ecosystems within our business. By combining client relationships with specialized platform capabilities, we can create additional avenues for growth beyond the standalone opportunities inherent in each of our businesses. In summary, our second quarter results reinforce the confidence that we have in our future. Step by step, we are building Colliers into a stronger global company with broader capabilities, more resilience in our performance, and better positioned to create lasting value for our clients, our professionals, and our shareholders. Let me turn things over to Christian to review our financial results in more detail. Christian?

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Thank you, Jay. Good morning, everyone. Please note that the non-GAAP measures discussed on this call are defined in our press release and quarterly presentation. Unless otherwise noted, all revenue growth figures are presented in local currency. Our second quarter consolidated revenues were $1.6 billion, up 16%, and net revenues also increased 16% to $1.4 billion. Adjusted EBITDA was $205 million, up 14%. Adjusted EPS increased 6% to $1.83 and was tempered by higher interest expense. These results met our expectations, and our momentum gives us confidence as we enter the second half of the year. Commercial Real Estate segment net revenue for the quarter was up 12%. Capital Markets rose 23%, with growth across all geographies led by the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Activity in industrial property sales was up notably in all geographies.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Leasing revenues were also up 23%, led by U.S. Industrial, with all global regions contributing to growth. The segment net margin was 11.9%, up slightly over the prior year. Engineering second quarter net revenue was up 27% from a mix of recent acquisitions, including a partial quarter of Ayesa and solid 5% internal growth. Our net margin was 14.5%, up slightly over last year. Our engineering backlog stood at 12 months as of June 30th, indicating strong momentum for the back half of the year. Investment Management net revenues increased 15%, driven by a recent acquisition and internal growth from new capital. The net margin was 36.5% as expected, given ongoing planned global platform building under the Harrison Street Asset Management brand. These costs will continue to impact margins for the second half of the year, and we expect margins to stabilize in the low 40% range for 2027.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

During the quarter, asset realizations generated strong gains and resulted in the return of $1.9 billion of capital to our limited partners and $3 billion year-to-date. Our demonstrated ability to monetize high-quality portfolios at attractive prices and make meaningful distributions to investors has always been a key differentiator for us. We raised $2.2 billion in new capital commitments in the second quarter and just under $3 billion for the six-month period. Year-to-date fundraising is on plan, and we expect an acceleration in the second half. Our annual fundraising target for 2026 remains unchanged at $6 billion-$9 billion. Turning to our balance sheet, we completed the Ayesa acquisition late in the quarter, and despite significant capital deployment for this strategic platform, we finished the second quarter with leverage of 2.8x.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

We expect to delever significantly in the second half of the year as the majority of our seasonal cash flows come in and should finish the year in the 2.3x range. Given this leverage profile and given the current undervaluation of our shares, we may choose to deploy capital on a stock buyback as we progress through the second half of the year. We are reaffirming our full year 2026 outlook. The key forward-looking indicators across our business segments being transaction pipelines, engineering backlogs, and fundraising pipelines are up nicely over the prior year. Geopolitical risk and macroeconomic volatility continue to be elevated, as we all know. However, we believe that these risks should not materially impact our overall results. That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, can you please open the line for questions?

Operator

We will now begin our Q&A. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question is from the line of Himanshu Gupta with Scotiabank. Himanshu, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Himanshu Gupta
Himanshu Gupta
Director and Equity Research Analyst at Scotiabank

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. First on commercial real estate. Looks like industrial was strong for leasing. Industrial was strong for Capital Markets as well in Q2. Just wondering what led to this strength and how do you see momentum in Q3?

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Yeah. Thanks, Himanshu. Industrial is one of our key historical strength areas, and it continues to be the case. In the quarter we saw strong demand in the Americas, in the U.S. in particular. That was, I think, partially a reflection of some uncertainty that happened last year, post Liberation Day, which was in the second quarter last year. There was an easier comp led to some stronger growth in that area. As we look ahead, momentum is strong. We do have some tougher comps ahead in the third quarter.

Himanshu Gupta
Himanshu Gupta
Director and Equity Research Analyst at Scotiabank

Okay. Overall, how do you see leasing revenue or Capital Markets in Q3?

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Yeah. We expect leasing revenues to be up in the mid-single-digit range and Capital Markets to be, again strong, 15% or thereabouts year-over-year growth.

Himanshu Gupta
Himanshu Gupta
Director and Equity Research Analyst at Scotiabank

Got it. Okay. Thank you. Just moving to Investment Management, especially the margins. Is the recovery pickup in margins getting pushed to the next year and not likely to be in Q4? Maybe anything on the margin side.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Yeah. Himanshu, as Jay mentioned, we're building a global investment management platform with Harrison Street. We have taken additional integration steps this year, including RoundShield rebranding and integrating with our Harrison Street Europe business, which was announced just a few weeks ago. Taking our time to integrate this business and build it for the future. That will impact the margins here for the remainder of the year. We expect the margin to profile to increase in 2027, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, to the low 40s range.

Himanshu Gupta
Himanshu Gupta
Director and Equity Research Analyst at Scotiabank

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?

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

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.

Himanshu Gupta
Himanshu Gupta
Director and Equity Research Analyst at Scotiabank

Okay. Thank you so much, and I'll turn it back. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Sheldon with William Blair. Stephen, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Stephen Sheldon
Stephen Sheldon
Research Analyst, Technology, Media, and Communications at William Blair

Hey, thanks. I wanted to start on the engineering side. I'm just curious if you can talk a little bit more about how internal organic growth there has been trending in the first half of the year, how you're thinking about it the back half and potentially into early next year. Also on I really appreciate the color, Jay, on how engineering ties into the rest of Colliers businesses. I think that's been an area of focus for the buy side, how much cross-selling opportunities there are between engineering and kind of the core CRE business. Just curious, yeah, do you think it'll take some time for some of the cross-selling opportunities to be realized, or are you already starting to see some of those come in? Yeah, for just a lot more color on engineering.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Great. A good question. I'll take the margin question. Our year-to-date sorry, our internal growth question on engineering. Year-to-date, internal growth in engineering is 5%, and we expect that to continue for the remainder of the year. I'll pass the question on the cross-sell opportunity in engineering to Jay.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

You know, Stephen, it's frustrating for me because we have not been able to articulate the full power of the differentiation that we're trying to create at Colliers. The engineering platform is not good, it's awesome. If you think about it, and I tried to give you an example in my prepared remarks, if you think about it, all the work done in much of, and it's not just data centers, it's in all ecosystems, whether you're building a building, you're building infrastructure, you're building any asset. We're designing, we're building, we're project managing all through our engineering business. The connectivity between the different platforms which for almost since inception, I don't think people really understood because they saw commercial real estate as a standalone platform, engineering and Harrison Street all as three standalone platforms when they're actually working together more and more.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Clients, the same clients

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Are retaining us to do more and more along the whole value chain. Now with Ayesa and opening up markets where we had huge presence in commercial real estate across Europe, the Middle East, and Australia, but we didn't truly have any engineering presence. Now with Ayesa, which already is doing business with both our commercial real estate and our investment management business. They're pitching business together, sort of a complete end-to-end solution. We think that over the next couple of years, being able to handle the entire life cycle of assets will create a differentiator for Colliers that none of the other peers have. Some of them have bits and pieces of it, but we think that we have a truly strategic, differentiated plan that is bearing fruit.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

These are global platforms, and they're global platforms run by people who have a vested interest, equity stakes in our businesses through our partnership philosophy. That creates huge glue and huge collaboration desire from each of the partners to work with the others. It's a bit of a frustration for me because we have not been able to articulate the power of the three different platforms working together, and we're going to dial up our efforts to do that over the next number of quarters until that finally hits home.

Stephen Sheldon
Stephen Sheldon
Research Analyst, Technology, Media, and Communications at William Blair

That's great to hear. Very helpful commentary, Jay. Just as a follow-up, I guess two questions in investment management. One, it seemed like management fees as a percentage of AUM set up nicely this quarter. Just curious what drove that and whether that's something structural and maybe that can keep moving higher from here. Two, am I right to think that it could get easier for fundraising activity? I know it's been a challenging couple of years, but as capital market activity picks up and as institutional LPs start to see more capital distributions, does that make it easier to go back and raise more money?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Yes. Again, we are building a global platform with Harrison Street. That means bringing together all of our unique strategies that we had around the world. As you know, Stephen, you've been following us for a long time. We built this platform one step at a time since 2018, and we built it through four acquisitions of very good operators that had a vested interest in their strategies. Now we're bringing them all under the Harrison Street banner on a global basis. We're taking distribution that it was previously done across the different platforms. We're standardizing them. There's so many aspects that we're doing, that's putting us in a different category in terms of fundraising. All of our 45 people that are in capital distribution are in front of clients, and the clients are making the decision on which strategies are more interesting to them.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

In the case of our proven funds, Harrison Street 10 is in the market right now, Basalt Five is in the market right now. There's a variety of strategies that have stood the test of time over a long period of time, there's also new strategies that have been introduced that our investors are saying, "Tell me more about that." If you don't do that in a streamlined way, you're missing a great opportunity to leverage relationships that the Harrison Street core business would have with some LPs. Now Basalt can leverage those strong relationships and introduce them to mid-market infrastructure deals that they're also interested in. Building a platform takes time, it takes expense, it takes bringing together teams, but we're very pleased with the results.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

All of the partners, and again, I emphasize, as you know, our philosophy has always been around perpetual partnerships. All of our partners in each of the strategies had the choice of staying by themselves or rolling up into Harrison Street Asset Management. To a professional, they all rolled up, and together they own circa 25% of the equity of this very valuable platform. Doing what we're doing is only making it much more valuable.

Stephen Sheldon
Stephen Sheldon
Research Analyst, Technology, Media, and Communications at William Blair

Makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Erin Kyle with CIBC Capital Markets. Erin, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Erin Kyle
Director and Equity Research Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe going back to the engineering segment on the margin side. The prior two quarters had seen some margin contraction on lower utilization that you had called out in the past, we saw net margins expand year-over-year this quarter. The question is utilization back up where you expect it to be, and are there any other productivity metrics or anything you can point to in the engineering segment?

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Yeah, Erin, the margin in our engineering business will vary on a quarterly basis because there is seasonality in our business. As you're aware, we operate in Canada and the northern parts of the U.S., where winter is a significant factor in driving revenue levels as well as utilization levels. In the past few quarters, we have called out some utilization areas in certain end markets, that's always going to be a factor in our business. For that reason, we have a multidiscipline diversified business with multiple end markets and multiple client types, and also a diversity of clients between public and private sector. Nothing really major to call out this quarter.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

The Ayesa acquisition, as you know, has higher margins, that is going to impact the margin profile a little bit in the back half of the year as we bring that business on stream.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

The only thing I would add to that, Christian, is Ayesa also creates more geographic diversification into different markets that have different climate issues.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Yeah. That's right. The seasonality of Ayesa is almost nonexistent. It generates 24%-26% of its revenues in EBITDA in any given quarter, given the markets that it operates in and without the weather-related seasonality.

Erin Kyle
Director and Equity Research Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets

Okay. That's helpful. On a go-forward basis, maybe in 2027, we see a little bit less of that quarter-to-quarter variability there.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Yes.

Erin Kyle
Director and Equity Research Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets

Which gears to the Commercial Real Estate segment. 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.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

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.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Those ranges are fairly wide. As long as geopolitical events continue to be under a reasonable level, we should see strong activity through the balance of the year.

Erin Kyle
Director and Equity Research Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets

Thank you. That's helpful. I'll pass the line.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jimmy Shan with RBC Capital Markets. Jimmy, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Jimmy Shan
Jimmy Shan
Managing Director, Real Estate and Global Research at RBC Capital Markets

Mentioned share buyback. I guess with the stock trading where it is, how are you prioritizing between share buyback versus the tuck-in M&A that you'll be doing, especially as leverage comes down? At what leverage level do you feel comfortable accelerating either?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Well, obviously, stock buybacks has been presence of mind for us. As you know, some of the senior executives here have been buying significant amounts of stock in the company. We did not believe that it would be prudent for us to be using our Normal Course Issuer Bid to be buying back stock in light of the significant Ayesa transaction, which is now completed. As Christian mentioned, the leverage, we expected something around three at the time we contracted for that transaction. It's come in at 2.8x, which is positive. You can see our cash flow conversion is very significant. As we approach the balance of the year, we expect our leverage to fall. Let me finish the point.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

It'll open up, we'll be able to consider using our issuer bid to acquire additional shares, particularly where they're currently trading. The other thing is that acquisitions continue to be abundant for us. There's lots of opportunity, not just with Ayesa, which opens up all kinds of new markets, all kinds of adjacencies, different additional qualifications that help not only the Ayesa business, but can be transferred to our other businesses. We don't want to slow down our acquisition activity at the same time. We always, even if there's a current difference in where Colliers is trading versus buying an exceptional business that will pay dividends over a long period of time, we will always default to a great acquisition. That's something that will add to us as we've done for 30 years.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

I hope that gives you a little bit more color around our thinking on the issuer bid.

Jimmy Shan
Jimmy Shan
Managing Director, Real Estate and Global Research at RBC Capital Markets

Yep, no, that's helpful. 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?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

I can give you my professional response, or I can tell you.

Jimmy Shan
Jimmy Shan
Managing Director, Real Estate and Global Research at RBC Capital Markets

Yeah

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

The way it is based on my experience. I'm just going to do what I always do and tell you the way it is. Look,

Jimmy Shan
Jimmy Shan
Managing Director, Real Estate and Global Research at RBC Capital Markets

Yeah

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

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.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

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.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

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.

Jimmy Shan
Jimmy Shan
Managing Director, Real Estate and Global Research at RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Appreciate the comment. Thanks.

Operator

I will now take this time to remind analysts that if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Daryl Young with Stifel. Daryl, your line-

Daryl Young
Daryl Young
Managing Director at Stifel

Hey, good

Operator

is open. Please go ahead.

Daryl Young
Daryl Young
Managing Director at Stifel

Hey, good morning, everyone. First question is just around the real estate services and outsourcing activity. Given the strength in transaction activity, I might have expected to see a little bit stronger performance in outsourcing advisory. Is there something specific you can speak to on the Europe and Asia weakness you highlighted?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Yeah. The only real challenge we have in our outsourcing business right now is the local project management in those two markets, and there's some timing of projects which I think we'll start to see those come through in the fourth quarter of this year. The other parts of the business, property management, valuation, loan servicing, all up nicely in the second quarter, and we expect that to continue through the balance of the year.

Daryl Young
Daryl Young
Managing Director at Stifel

Got it. Just quickly on the data center theme, one of your peers provided an outlook for some pretty exceptional long-term growth and revenue targets. I know you've referenced data centers in the past as just another asset class that you're capable of servicing, but there does seem to be some pretty significant early mover wins in that sector. Is there a more formalized strategy that you're taking or that's evolving in the background around data centers for Colliers?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

The short answer is that we, in each of our businesses, are focusing very closely on the growth in data centers. We believe we're getting a strong share, whether it's in engineering. Obviously, Harrison Street owns $6 billion worth of these centers, which gives us natural connectivity to be doing business there. We have not developed, as you're suggesting, a uniform strategy across all platforms yet. I presume we will over time. What's happening is that there's lots of growth. For example, if we're doing data center work for a client in engineering and that client goes and does a separate data center, we generally get the first call. There's a great opportunity for us to take more share from that particular client in a different geographic region. We're seeing quite a bit of that, which is exciting to see.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

I would say, if I'm being candid, we are very busy with data centers right now. It's difficult to get everybody together and say, "Let's create a uniform strategy" when they're just trying. You can see the internal growth in engineering is quite strong. We expect it to get a little stronger. One of those areas is data centers.

Daryl Young
Daryl Young
Managing Director at Stifel

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?

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

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.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

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.

Daryl Young
Daryl Young
Managing Director at Stifel

Got it. Thanks for that, guys, congrats on a good quarter.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Thanks.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Germain with Citizens Bank. Mitch, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Mitch Germain
Managing Director at Citizens Bank

Thank you. Jay, while I recognize engineering and investment management are very nuanced and differentiated, is there a thought around having Ayesa, Englobe, and other of your key executives coming up with maybe maintaining their existing brands, but coming up with some sort of unified strategy around that business line?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Around which business line?

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Engineering.

Mitch Germain
Managing Director at Citizens Bank

Engineering.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

[Jay], can you say anything to that?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

I don't really understand your question.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Yeah.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

You want to give it to me again?

Mitch Germain
Managing Director at Citizens Bank

Well, I understand that the individual brands have a lot of value. Obviously, you have certain potential cost savings initiatives that you can deliver if you unify some maybe back office or other sort of functionality, and maybe best-in-class practices that they could be sharing in their individual competencies. Is there any thought around making sure that you can leverage that knowledge and capability and be able to spread it on a more global basis?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Well, they're doing that today. Remember, all technology is run centrally. Each of the divisions have their own technology infrastructure, but it's all within the overall Colliers structure. The same thing with a number of other shared services. On the business front, what we're finding is that the engineering businesses in the different geographic regions are working closely with the primarily commercial real estate, and investment management, or the investment professionals within the investment management business to see about bringing together a complete solution for clients. They're doing that naturally right now. I would say it's still early days to have a much more formalized approach. Anything internally around how do we rationalize, simplify Is there a way to create additional efficiencies, bring down data costs across the organization? That's all been something that we've been doing for years across Colliers, that's happening.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

The new business connectivity is becoming more interesting because, as I said earlier, the client relationships, if you've got a strong relationship with Costco in one part of the U.S. and they're building a data center or a building, and it applies not just to data centers, but all kinds of other ecosystems. They're building something else in other parts of the country. It brings the two opportunities together very nicely. It's spreading business around. I would say nothing's formalized yet. I think we need another year or two of really capitalizing on some of the business opportunities we're getting and seeing how everybody naturally comes together. We are capitalizing on, I would say, the easier things, which is the internal cost structures and ways in which we can become more efficient.

Mitch Germain
Managing Director at Citizens Bank

Got you. That's super helpful. 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?

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

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.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Unusually low share values where we can capitalize.

Mitch Germain
Managing Director at Citizens Bank

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Frederic Bastien with Raymond James. Frederic, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Frederic Bastien
Frederic Bastien
Managing Director, Head of Industrial Research at Raymond James

Good morning. Guys, it's still early days for Ayesa under the Colliers platform, are there any early surprises, positive or negative, that you can share?

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

It's been a very positive experience so far. We found the team very excited about becoming partners finally in the business. They're now real equity partners in the business. They had not had that opportunity under the prior ownership structure. They are very engaged internally, in their growth as well as with our commercial real estate folks, and our other engineering folks around the world, to explore opportunities to work together and to build the business. It's been a very positive first couple of months, and we look forward to building our relationship more deeply with that team.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Fred, as you know.

Frederic Bastien
Frederic Bastien
Managing Director, Head of Industrial Research at Raymond James

Maybe just continue on that.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Yeah, just sorry, Fred, as you know, these deals generally take a year or a year and a half to come to fruition. We've had a long time to work with the team and better understand what their motivations are and where their opportunities are that they couldn't pursue under the previous ownership structure. That's been quite exciting. They're exceptional operators. I could be wrong, but I think since 1964, when the company was founded, they made one acquisition in Australia. That one acquisition was a company that our team looked at also in Australia, and it was relatively recent. There's an opportunity to bring those two together. The bigger point is, there's lots of opportunity within their existing markets with relationships that they've had for years and years that we think that we can capitalize on with this great team over the coming years.

Frederic Bastien
Frederic Bastien
Managing Director, Head of Industrial Research at Raymond James

Great. Just building on that, are there any specific areas of expertise or capabilities within the business, within Ayesa, that you're particularly excited about to potentially cross-sell across the broader Colliers platform?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Yeah, they have a very strong expertise in desalination. I think they run, I don't know the number, it's something between six and 10 large. They designed them, they built them, they operate them in the Middle East using technology, I believe, that they were able to gain from Israel. That's an interesting area for them. They have some marine engineering expertise and water, which we think that we can transfer to other markets. Each engineering platform in other companies, as you know better than most

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Have lots of different expertise, I think Ayesa brings two or three more that we can transfer hopefully easily to our other businesses.

Frederic Bastien
Frederic Bastien
Managing Director, Head of Industrial Research at Raymond James

Perfect. Thanks. That's all I have.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen MacLeod with BMO Capital Markets. Stephen, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Stephen MacLeod
Stephen MacLeod
Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets

Thank you. Good morning, guys. Lots of great color so far on the call. Thank you, specifically around some of the cross-selling opportunities. Nice to hear about the long-term opportunities. I just wanted to focus in just a little bit, 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.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

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.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

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.

Stephen MacLeod
Stephen MacLeod
Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets

That's great. Thanks, Christian. I know we're talking a little bit about sort of leverage and the balance between that and buybacks, but you're very long-term thinkers. When we get to 2027, and you think about the opportunity for you to be able to deploy capital for acquisitions in a more meaningful way, can you just give a bit of color around sort of what you see as your next top priorities?

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Our nearest term top priority is to complete the buildout of Harrison Street Asset Management as a global player. Anyone that follows the asset management business will see that Harrison Street is among one of the bigger players in sort of the next tier below the obvious big guys. There's lots of opportunity for us to continue to consolidate that business. There's a lot of opportunity to raise additional capital. The early talk for 2027 and beyond is higher than what we're talking about today, primarily because there's more strategies, more opportunity. Just to summarize, I think our nearest term focus is to finish the job at Harrison Street, bring it all together in a streamlined way. As Christian alluded to, we actually accelerated a few steps in the integration process over the past quarter because we thought there was a great opportunity to do it in Europe.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Round one was to bring it all together in the U.S., which is largely done. Round two is Europe. Round three is an expansion into Australia, New Zealand, which we're already on the ground, and looking for opportunity down there as well. Where do we go from here? Base business is strong. We're focused in the right areas. Some of our peers are in traditional real estate assets. We have a very small component of our business in traditional real estate. We're focused on alternate real estate infrastructure, debt, things like that. We like the categories that we're in, but there's lots of opportunity for us to consolidate, bring other exceptional strategies into the fold. I would say there's that. Engineering continues to be a growth engine.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Even in commercial real estate, there's some interesting opportunities to strengthen our debt origination business, create opportunities to enhance our access to capital flows to fund some of our professionals' origination. There's just a lot happening, and that's one of the great things of having a global platform now in three different areas. We can grow globally. We can grow by service line. We have a much more resilient revenue stream than any of the others do by quite a bit. We're really building a highly diversified, resilient business the way that we've done it for so many years to create long-term value for our shareholders, the largest of which are the people that run the business day to day.

Stephen MacLeod
Stephen MacLeod
Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets

That's great.

Stephen MacLeod
Stephen MacLeod
Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets

Thanks, Jay. Thanks, Christian. Appreciate the color.

Christian Mayer
Christian Mayer
CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers

Thanks.

Operator

We have reached the end of our Q&A session. I will now pass the call back to Mr. Jay Hennick for some closing remarks.

Jay Hennick
Jay Hennick
Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers

Thank you everyone for participating, and we look forward to speaking again at the end of the third quarter. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. Thank you for your participation, and have a nice day.

Analysts
    • Jay Hennick
      Global Chairman and CEO at Colliers
    • Christian Mayer
      CFO and CEO of Commercial Real Estate at Colliers
    • Himanshu Gupta
      Director and Equity Research Analyst at Scotiabank
    • Stephen Sheldon
      Research Analyst, Technology, Media, and Communications at William Blair
    • Erin Kyle
      Director and Equity Research Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets
    • Jimmy Shan
      Managing Director, Real Estate and Global Research at RBC Capital Markets
    • Daryl Young
      Managing Director at Stifel
    • Mitch Germain
      Managing Director at Citizens Bank
    • Frederic Bastien
      Managing Director, Head of Industrial Research at Raymond James
    • Stephen MacLeod
      Managing Director at BMO Capital Markets
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