JLL Earnings: Leasing and Outsourcing Businesses Drove Strong Results; Maintaining Our Valuation

Narrow-moat-rated Jones Lang LaSalle reported a good set of numbers in the first quarter as the leasing and outsourcing businesses performed well while the capital markets business is starting to see some signs of a future recovery. The company reported that global investment sales were down 4% during the first quarter, with the Americas down 6%, EMEA down 17%, and Asia-Pacific up 26%. The renewed volatility in US interest rates is weighing on the recovery of investment volumes in the Americas. It was encouraging to see that the global office leasing volumes were up 7% in the first quarter compared with the first quarter of 2023, but they are still materially below prepandemic levels. In the industrial sector, gross leasing volumes were down 2% in the Americas, down 15% in EMEA, and up 5% in Asia-Pacific on a year-over-year basis.