Earnings Labs

Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (JLL)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Mon, Feb 6, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Jones Lang LaSalle, Incorporated's Fourth Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. For your information, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Grace Chang, Managing Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Grace Chang - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and welcome to the fourth quarter and full year 2016 earnings conference call for Jones Lang LaSalle, Incorporated. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. Earlier today, we issued a news release which is also available on the Investor Relations section of our website at jll.com along with a slide presentation. A transcript of this conference call will also be posted on that site. Any statements made about future results and performance or about plans, expectations and objectives are forward-looking statements. Actual results and performance may differ from those included in these forward-looking statements as a result of factors discussed in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 and in other reports filed with the SEC. During our call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures which we believe provide useful information for investors. We include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures where appropriate to GAAP in our news release and supplemental slides located on the Investor Relations section of our website. The company disclaims any undertaking to publicly update or revise any forward-looking comments. Now with that, I would like to turn the call over to Christian Ulbrich, Chief Executive Officer, for opening remarks.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Grace. I would also like to welcome you to the review of our 2016 fourth quarter and full-year results. I'm joined by Christie Kelly, our CFO, who will provide you with details in a few minutes. But first let me summarize our results. We generated record double-digit revenue increases for both the quarter and year but did not translate that into comparable profit gains. Fee revenue totaled $1.8 billion for the quarter, 15% above the fourth quarter of 2015 in local currency. For the full year, fee revenue increased 14% to $5.8 billion. Adjusted net income was $180 million for the fourth quarter compared with $210 million for the same period in 2015. Full-year adjusted net income totaled $370 million compared with $463 million in 2015. Adjusted diluted earnings per share totaled $3.95 for the quarter and $8.13 for the year. Revenue growth was led by Property & Facility Management and Project & Development Services. Our overall Leasing & Capital Markets businesses delivered solid performance in the face of declining market volumes, especially in the UK. LaSalle continued its strong performance and expanded its energy annuity-based advisory fees. While we delivered good revenue expansion, our profits were lower primarily due to lower LaSalle incentive fees and equity earnings, which we expected given the life cycle of fund maturities; significantly lower incentive fees in our Capital Markets business, which were largely driven by a difficult market environment in the UK following the Brexit vote; stronger growth in our most stable annuity businesses accelerated by the Integral acquisition in the UK compared with slower growth in our higher-margin transactional services; and lastly, increased technology spend reflecting our transformation into a technology-led company that delivers solutions for the real estate portfolios of our clients. To put our results in context, let's…

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Christian, and welcome to everyone on our call. Christian provided the headline summary of results regarding revenues and earnings for the year and quarter, so I will move directly to business line results. On a consolidated basis, Leasing revenues grew 3% for the quarter to reach a record $1.8 billion for the full year, representing 7% growth year-over-year and outperforming the global market decline of 4% in gross absorption. As Christian mentioned, with the slower investment sales market, global volumes declined 2% in the quarter and 6% for the full year. Against this backdrop, our Capital Markets fee revenue was down 4% in the quarter, primarily affected by UK capital markets. For the full year, we outperformed the markets decisively with a slight decline of 1% that compares to the strong performance we had in 2015. Property & Facility Management fee revenue grew a record 49% for the quarter, up 33% for the year, largely driven by the acquisition of Integral. Projects & Development Services grew 26% for the quarter and 28% for the year. Advisory & Consulting grew 12% for the quarter and 15% for the year. Combined, these businesses drove the Real Estate Services fee revenue growth in the fourth quarter and over 80% of our annual growth. For a margin perspective, we have provided additional information on slide 7 of our supplemental slides. Adjusted EBITDA margin calculated on a fee revenue basis was 11.4% for the full year compared with 14.4% in the full year 2015, a decline of 300 basis points or 330 basis points on a constant currency basis. Nearly 60% of this reduction was driven by LaSalle's reduced level of equity earnings and incentive fees and by incremental investments in technology, data and people. The shift in the organic service mix was…

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Christie. For a sense of how and where we achieved our results, slide 23 provides a sample of recent business wins across service lines and geographies. In our Corporate Services business, we won 150 new assignments in 2016, expanded existing relationships with another 68 lines and renewed 31 contracts. These 249 wins total 803 million square feet across all regions. During the year, we achieved 69% win rate for new business, expansions and renewals. Our Capital Markets & Leasing businesses are major contributors to our profits and continue to show strong wins delivering a long list of prominent deals. LaSalle Investment Management had a $5.1 billion net capital raise for the year and increased its assets under management to a record $60.1 billion at year-end. Looking forward, world GDP is expected to grow by an estimated 3.3% this year. It is too soon to know just how Brexit, the new U.S. administration and other global political uncertainties might affect our own business. Still, it is fair to say that the Brexit vote, in particular, hasn't created an environment which encourages our clients to take long-term decisions around their real estate portfolios. Looking at our markets, JLL research is forecasting that global investment sales volumes will slightly exceed 2016's levels of $661 billion and could potentially reach $700 billion. We see a stable trend within sovereign wealth funds and other long-term investors to increase their real estate allocations so that even with an increase in interest rates, real estate will continue to be a growing asset class. Obviously, this will also benefit the business of LaSalle Investment Management. Our researchers also project that global leasing volumes in 2017 will be broadly comparable to last year's total. Looking forward, we are confident that JLL will be leading the massive transformation our…

Operator

Operator

Yes. Our first question comes from Brandon Dobell from William Blair. Your line is now open. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Thanks. Good evening. Maybe...

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Hey, Brandon. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Hi. How are you? Christie, maybe...

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Good. How are you doing? Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: ...maybe could touch on the margin progression side which I think is some great detail. And I want to try and see if I can understand how those same factors, especially LaSalle and the mix as we think about 2017, I know there is still a headwind from LaSalle just because this year was pretty good. Should we think about the same kind of magnitude from the service mix changes just because the fee revenues there are still growing pretty quickly? But it also kind of feels to me like the headwind from the technology and investment part of that bridge should be less than it was in 2016. Is that a fair way to characterize those three kind of major buckets?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

I think a couple of things, Brandon. We've given some just color on the general business outlook in the supplemental slides in response to yours and many of our analyst feedback together with investors. So I hope you find that helpful. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Definitely.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

And then in terms of just general color, first let's talk about LaSalle, incentive fees and equity earnings. We've indicated that LaSalle incentive fees and equity earnings will be reverting to historical norms. That holds true for 2017 for equity earnings of about $20 million. We're expecting that incentive fees are going to be a bit below the historical norm of $40 million, probably around $30 million as best we can call it right now. And as everybody knows, we don't have control over incentive fees. But with that, it's not an indication of poor performance at all by LaSalle. It just an indication of where we are in the fund's life cycle. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Right.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

So, please note that. As it relates to service mix, I think you can expect more of the same. We're doing very well around the globe, but who's to say the impact of Brexit and the UK sentiment and where we are together with the fact that we've had significant growth in investment in our annuity-based earnings based on M&A. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Right.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

And then specifically, as it relates to margin performance on tech and data, I think you can expect from a capital allocation perspective and in alignment with Christian's strategy as we transform our business for that to remain an important portion of our capital allocation strategy here for the near-term as we invest to scale for our future, as well as transform the front-end tools. And then finally, please, everybody, don't forget the impact of Integral. It's an absolute necessary foundational pillar to our Corporate Solutions business, as we said, but the makeup of that business is just different. It's a lower-margin, principal-oriented business, great team, we're very excited about where we are in integration and the like, but it just is a lower-margin business and we'll have a run rate impact on the overall margin profile of our business going forward as we grow. And with that, I'll turn it over to Christian who may have a few comments.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

I don't think I have much to add to what you just said. I think you outlined it perfectly. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Okay. Perfect. And then maybe tapping onto that about Integral, I know you haven't had it that long under the JLL umbrella, but how do you feel so far about the integration of the people and the systems and everything into the JLL family? But I guess also importantly, how do you think about the cross-sell or kind of bundling opportunities you guys were seeing relative to your expectations?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Brandon, first of all, I visited the team, I've been spending a lot of time around the globe with our acquisition team members, as you can imagine. And first of all, I could not be more pleased with the integration in terms of the timeline, the cultural fit, the team in terms of embracing the business within the UK, working with our colleagues and really starting to drive cross-sell actually very early because if you can imagine, new people coming together in a market and really starting to work together on their pipeline, that takes a little time. It takes trust, it takes building relationships, and this team has just really hit the ground running. Plus, our COO of the Corporate Solutions business has just done a marvelous job with the business leadership there together with our finance leadership team who has been working tirelessly with an extraordinary CFO in Integral together with the business leadership team to bring this all together. So very pleased. And I think in terms of cross-sell, it's a significant opportunity for us and we're already all over it. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Okay. And then final one for me, you called out a couple of larger transactions, I know these things kind of pop up now and again. But as we think about the first and second quarter of 2017 relative to the first and second quarter of 2016, anything jump out at you especially in the transaction business? I know we can look at LaSalle and get those numbers, but anything in the transaction businesses that is going to create a tough comparison that we need to be reminded about?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

I just think the general outperformance of Capital Markets in Leasing, at least since I've been here over the past three years, so I would just call that out. But there's nothing noteworthy. I'll turn to Christian to see if he's heard of anything specific.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Frankly, the first quarter last year wasn't a pretty good quarter in the transaction area although we already saw some hesitation in the UK before the Brexit vote... Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Right.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

And so I wouldn't recall any real tough comparison for this quarter compared to the same quarter last year.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Brandon, you mentioned LaSalle and that you're all aware of that, but a lot happened over the years and you guys have a tremendous responsibility with all the companies that you cover. I just want to remind everybody that the first quarter last year was LaSalle's maiden voyage in launch of the J-REIT, which we're really excited about that. But that had really outstanding – an outstanding impact on the norm for our first quarter. So please take a look at that in terms of phasing. The second thing is take a look at the impact of the UK and expect more of the same for the foreseeable future. Our team is doing really well but the market is just a bit slow. And then finally, don't forget about Integral and just the fact that given the phasing of how our business works, the first quarter is low in comparison to the remainder of the year. Brandon B. Dobell - William Blair & Co. LLC: Got it. Okay. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Brandon.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Brad Burke from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Hi, Brad. Brad Burke - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi, everyone.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Hi. Brad Burke - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi, Christie. How are you?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Good. How are you? Brad Burke - Goldman Sachs & Co.: I appreciate the additional disclosure. I think it's helpful.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

You're welcome. Brad Burke - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Looking at slide 10, it looks like the midpoint of your outlook, I won't call it guidance, but the outlook, you'd expect just 5% – over 5% growth in adjusted EBITDA for the coming year, that's midpoint of the revenue guidance, midpoint of the adjusted EBITDA margin guidance. So I was hoping you could elaborate on what you view as being the biggest drivers of your expected EBITDA growth. And then what do you think about also as being the biggest risks positive and negative to the midpoint of that outlook?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Sure. I think just in terms of the biggest drivers, Brad, for LaSalle incentive fees and equity earnings after three years of impressive contribution, really it's just a matter of where we are in the cycle. That business, as you very well know, is a 10-year cycle generally and we're just retooling. So I think as an analyst and an investor in our company, everybody just needs to remember that. And the team is doing extraordinarily well, but we're just at that point in time where we're just out of the starting block. And so, from that perspective, we'll think about an incubation period of four to seven years on those funds we're building up and then expect sound results as we move forward given the current market condition. Second of all, Integral UK, we can't underestimate the impact of a significant business – the principal business on our overall margins. It's not a bad thing. It's just really a mix of fee versus growth business. And so in any event, just make sure that we understand that impact and remember that this is all about stable and accretive revenue and earnings. Although it is margin dilutive from a percentage perspective, it really does help drive nominal EBITDA. And as Christian noted in his remarks, we are investing in the platform and the front-end transformation of our tools as we really drive to have best-in-class technology on the front end of our Real Estate Services, and this really is for the long-term benefit not only of our clients but in terms of driving total shareholder return and the scalable platform of our business. But in terms of the remarks that we've had, the environment, I can't really comment at all on any more pluses or negatives other than the fact that we've got a great team and everybody is very focused on translating revenues to profit. Brad Burke - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. That's helpful. And just a clarification on the $0.15 EPS impact also on that same slide, is it fair to think that where the current spot rates are you'd be towards the negative $0.15 end of that spectrum? And when you're giving an outlook for 10% to 12% adjusted EBITDA margin, does it include your expectations for FX impact?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

It does. Brad Burke - Goldman Sachs & Co.: And you are skewing towards the negative $0.15 end of the spectrum?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Not necessarily. We ran a bunch of sensitivities as you can imagine, Brad, and I would say just pick where you think it's going to be. Brad Burke - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you, guys.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

You bet.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from David Ridley-Lane from Bank of America. Your line is now open.

David E. Ridley-Lane - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is now open

Sure. So, how do you think about the UK head count relative to the duration of the potential downturn in the market? How extended would that downturn need to be for JLL to meaningfully reduce UK head count?

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Well, we have, even before Integral, David, we had 2,500 people, and then you put the Integral on top, so we have to define what is meaningful. So let's focus on the business which is really impacted by that downturn that is the transactional business, notably the Capital Markets & Leasing business. As we have outlined, we believe that going forward the transaction volumes will stabilize in the UK on that lower level what we have seen in 2016. We have already quietly not replaced people who were leaving us and have reduced a little bit on the costs. So I don't expect any significant need to have further reductions in that space in the UK going forward. Now we are staying very close to the situation in the UK, but though the development has been clearly exceeding our most negative expectations which we got for the Brexit but at the end of the day, we are very hopeful that pragmatism will take over and that things will play out fine for the UK going forward.

David E. Ridley-Lane - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is now open

Understood. And if I read between the lines on the full-year outlook, it seems like you're bit optimistic about margin expansion for Real Estate Services. Is that a correct characterization?

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Well, I think we are very optimistic for the outlook for our business over the next couple of years because real estate as an asset class will continue to grow, and I think we have done our homework over the last couple of years. I think Christie was very detailed on giving a bit of insight of how we see 2017 to play out. We have different kinds of factors, some will bring our margin down with the increase of our annuity business and some factors will help to stabilize or grow our margin. I think we have provided pretty good read for you guys to see where it will go into 2017.

David E. Ridley-Lane - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is now open

Understood. And then just a final quick one, is the 8% to 11% fee revenue growth, is that in constant currency or in U.S. dollars? Thanks.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

It's in USD.

David E. Ridley-Lane - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is now open

Okay. Thank you very much.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

You bet, David.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Emil Shalmiyev from JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Emil Shalmiyev - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Good afternoon, guys. Just in terms of the M&A environment given the pressure that the public CRE brokers have been under, are you seeing any notable change in pricing for tuck-in deals just from a multiples perspective? And any notable increase or decrease in companies being listed for sale?

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

You know what, I think despite all the geopolitical turmoil and other factors which would drive a bit of caution, pricing for M&A is still at the very high end of it and there isn't really a sign that this is easing. Frankly, we are very focused going forward on integrating our 48 acquisitions we have done in the past. So we're not overly concerned about the current price levels.

Emil Shalmiyev - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Okay...

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

I think too, Emil, just we view – we did a majority – all of our acquisitions, I would say, mid-cycle. It's very nice pricing. And following on from Christian's thoughts, we just think things are getting a little choppy now.

Emil Shalmiyev - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

So we're talking about like high-single digit EBITDA multiples?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

We're seeing much, much higher than that. And we can take you through some (42:17) if that would be helpful.

Emil Shalmiyev - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Okay. Thank you.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

You're talking about the market, right, Emil, not...

Emil Shalmiyev - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Yeah, for the market. Yeah.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Yeah, because we did really nice transactions and we've disclosed that on our information in terms of EBITDA multiples. So we're happy to take you through anything we can help you with in terms of external focus.

Emil Shalmiyev - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

All right. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Jade Rahmani from KBW. Your line is now open.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Hi, Jade. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thank you very much. Hi. How are you?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Good. How are you doing? Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thanks very much. I'm doing well. Thanks. I was hoping you could provide some additional color on CRE investor sentiment in the investment sales market. It looks like your research did moderate market expectations to 0% to 5% growth from up 10% previously. And I was wondering if in terms of investor sentiment you're seeing increased focus on uncertainty, whether it be regarding the cycle, rates or perhaps prospects for you as tax reform which may negatively impact CRE or if you are sensing some increased optimism around potential growth prospects.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Jade. Investor sentiment over the course of 2016 went through a bit of the cycle. We saw during the course of the year a bit of an increase in caution. So when you usually had six or eight really strong bidders for a building, it kind of went down to maybe two or three. But at the end of the year, November-December, was very strong again with a very intense competition, and the way we see generally starting, this trend is continuing. So, I think, as I alluded to in my earlier comments, the attractiveness of real estate in that current environment is still very, very high, and we see an increase in allocations and that will at the end just drive further investor sentiment. Now we have to watch a little bit the interest rate environment, but it is incredibly hard to predict. We may see a bit of an increase in the U.S., but we believe still only to an extent which will not change that underlying positive trend for real estate. And with regards to other currencies, I can see very little reasons why these interest rates in those currencies should increase significantly. So, going forward, we are still pretty positive about investor sentiment. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: And in terms of the deal timelines, are you seeing those improve with some of the increase in the number of bidders that you noted took in place in December and recently?

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Well, frankly, that is not really the case. Because people are slightly concerned about where we are in the cycle, they are taking really their time to come to their final decision, and in contrary to maybe previous years, people are not accepting to be pushed into a decision. They rather walk away from a deal. Now, as I said, we tend to have more than one bidder. That is okay, but the cycle – the time cycle of closing a deal is continued to be slightly longer than we have seen it in 2015 or 2014, and frankly we don't expect that to change in 2017. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: And on the Oak Grove side, we've seen some phenomenal growth rates even in organic terms from some of your competitors. I was wondering if you have plans in place to grow Oak Grove market share whether that be a function of head count expansion, capital allocation or something else.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Well, we are very happy with that Oak Grove acquisition. It has – and has been integrated extremely well in our U.S. Capital Markets business, and we expect it to continue to grow in 2017 nicely, and that will be done organically. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: And just finally in terms of the IT spend, I think the December presentation gave what you thought the range would be for 2016. Are you anticipating maintaining that aggregate level of IT spend or increasing it just as a percentage of revenues?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Jade, I'll jump in there just from the perspective of just overall. We don't expect to increase it. Christian is really focused on driving the projects that we view as a leadership team and our businesses view are going to really generate the best benefits in the frontend of our business together with our platform. And so we're managing within specific budgets and profiles, and I'll just turn it over to Christian.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Yeah. I think we have done real foundational work over the last couple of years and have shifted now more and more to front end parts of the business. And so I'm taking the reporting directly and connected as best as possible with my colleagues on the GB (48:00) who run our P&Ls so that we have the highest impact of that investment. And as Christie says, it doesn't need an additional increase towards what you have seen over the past couple of years, but we will maintain that level. What is more important for us is that within that overall spend, it's shifting more and more towards client-facing tools and applications. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: And just I guess pulling it back to the outlook, the range of adjusted EBITDA margins, what would be the couple of sort of areas of greatest uncertainty that can push the margins towards the lower end of the range? But your spend is expected to be unchanged year over year.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Yeah. It is very much around our Capital Markets business. If we are getting an unexpected volatility in the market with significantly lower-than-expected success fees, that will drive it more to the lower end. And in contrary, if the Capital Markets business will run significantly better than we are projecting then you will see a slightly better performance. But we are pretty confident about that range for 2017. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thank you very much.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Jade.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Mitch Germain from JMP Securities. Your line is now open.

Mitch B. Germain - JMP Securities LLC

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Good evening.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Hi, Mitch.

Mitch B. Germain - JMP Securities LLC

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

How are you? I might have missed it, Christie, what was the organic growth for the Capital Markets business line?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Organic growth of Capital Markets, we were about 50%/50%.

Mitch B. Germain - JMP Securities LLC

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. And it seems like you had been alluding to kind of somewhat lower incentive fees in the back part of the year. Anything driving what was recorded in LaSalle?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

No. Nothing out of the ordinary. The team has been doing extraordinarily well.

Mitch B. Germain - JMP Securities LLC

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

And that's what, like a 50% margin is the way we should think about it?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Yeah. You could think about it as a 50% margin.

Mitch B. Germain - JMP Securities LLC

Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. Everything else has been answered. Thank you.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

You bet, Mitch.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Jason Weaver from Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open.

Jason Weaver - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Hi.

Jason Weaver - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open

On a comment you made earlier, given your stance on the pricing for potential acquisitions, what would you expect the new capital deployment priority could be, whether that be shareholder return or just cash build? And also given that stance on pricing, are there any holdings in particular that you see as non-core that might actually be divestment opportunities?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Hi there, Jason. A couple of things. Just from a capital allocation perspective, we are very focused on, as Christian said, driving the integration of the acquisitions that we've conducted and then really building the return momentum within those businesses through cross-sell, et cetera. So we're really excited about that. The other thing is we invested significantly in annuity-based revenue stream which you would think from a cash flow perspective is very attractive also from a multiple perspective. And so we're looking to earn that in the marketplace and in our business going forward. And then finally, the allocation towards front-end tools from a technology perspective, as we really transform our business, it really, I think, helps over the long-term drive scalable benefits that not only to our people and clients but ultimately to our shareholders. And I'll also turn it over to Christian.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Yeah, as we already alluded to, our capital allocation is very focused on going forward and driving our organic growth. And whatever is needed to do so, that will be in our focus which includes also the core investment which is needed to drive our LaSalle Investment Management business which is driving margins very nicely.

Jason Weaver - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. That's helpful. Just on the accounting, for the compensation expense, was that fully incorporating the integration of Integral or is that something to comment forward, is it phased in?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Jason, could you repeat that question one more time? I don't think we – Christian or I really understood what you're asking?

Jason Weaver - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open

Sure. Did the compensation line item that you reported fully incorporate the integration of Integral in this time period? Or is this before the...

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Sorry. No, it's really just a quarter.

Jason Weaver - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open

Okay. Fair enough.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Yes. 5 times to be precise.

Jason Weaver - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open

That is it for me.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Marc Riddick from Sidoti. Your line is now open. Marc Riddick - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Hi. Good evening.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Hi, Marc. Marc Riddick - Sidoti & Co. LLC: I wanted to go over one quick question on the mention of the margins, and I appreciate you mentioned the margins on the acquisitions. And if I jotted this down correctly, I think you said it was about 12.5% on the acquisition excluding Integral and about 9.5% including, if I got that correct? I was wondering if you could...

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

That's correct. Marc Riddick - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Okay. Good. Good. I wanted to make sure – I wanted to sort of get an understanding of what you were looking at as far as the potential for margin expansion. And we'll put Integral aside for a moment. So, excluding Integral, what type of potential goals or maybe what investors might be looking for going forward on the other acquisitions and what's possible there?

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Yeah. So I think the first thing, Marc, is we're really looking to drive the return on capital as we complete the integration of our acquisitions and really reap the benefits, if you will, together as a team of the incremental EBITDA margin associated with those investments. And we're really excited about the momentum that's building around the world and in terms of where we are for the fourth quarter performance. I think – so, one is M&A. Two is the longer-term productivity benefits coming from the technology investments. We've talked about things like infrastructure, we've talked about front-end tools where we can really drive revenue per head and (55:10) with reduced cycle time in those investments as well as just be more relevant as we are changing and transforming in this digital age. So, two is technology. And three is really building the mix of our transaction businesses on top of this really nice layer now of annuity-based revenue. We've really view that it's a really solid foundation and that going forward we'll work to really drive our Capital Markets as well as again our Corporate Solutions business. Marc Riddick - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Okay, great. And a question as far as the cadence of the technology spending through 2017, is there any reason for us to believe that there would be any, in particular, lumpiness or choppiness to that or would be sort of expect relatively smooth across the year and beyond? Thank you.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

You can expect it to be relatively smooth across the year. Technology spend is not ideally placed for lumpiness. Marc Riddick - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Okay. Thank you.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jade Rahmani from KBW. Your line is now open. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thanks for taking the follow-up. I was wondering if you could comment on the or elaborate on the comment around brand expansion into the broader corporate world. Does that refer to increased outsourcing services or consulting projects, and are you doing any of that work currently?

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Yes. Well, absolutely. I mean, it's probably fair to say that we're in the real estate investor world, we are an extremely well-known brand within very, very high reputation. We are on a journey to drive that brand very much into the corporate space, into the C-suite of corporates who are not dealing with real estate on an everyday basis, who should see us as the excellent service provider. They should expect when they have to deal with real estate, and that is the journey we are on. Jade Rahmani - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thanks very much.

Christie B. Kelly - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Jade.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's Q&A session. I would now like to turn the call back over for any closing remarks.

Christian Ulbrich - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.

Management

Well, thank you. With no further question, we will end today's call. Thank you for joining Christie and me. We look forward to speaking again following the first quarter. All the best to you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.