Global commercial property agent CBRE saw its earnings per share drop by 5% to $0.75 in the first quarter of the year, down from $0.79 in the same period a year earlier.
Revenues, however, increased by around 15% year-on-year to $5.88 bn at end-March despite the coronavirus crisis.
‘We had a strong start to the year before the impact of Covid-19 emerged in late March,’ said Bob Sulentic, CBRE’s president & chief executive officer.
‘Our results were driven by strong performance in the advisory services segment, particularly property sales in continental Europe and Japan. A modest decrease in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share for the business as a whole was driven by our real estate investments segment, where we experienced a $27 mln decline in our co-investments in the public real estate securities portfolio.’
In light of the uncertain operating environment caused by Covid-19, CBRE has withdrawn its financial guidance for 2020, which was announced at end-February. Commenting on the market environment in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sulentic said: ‘The coming quarters will no doubt be challenging for our industry. In light of how suddenly and severely economic growth has collapsed, we are taking actions to mitigate the impact across every part of our business.’
‘However, the steps we have taken over the past decade to strengthen CBRE have prepared us well for the current environment. Compared with the Global Financial Crisis, we have a stronger market position across business lines, a more diversified and contractual revenue base, a significantly stronger balance sheet with more than $3 bn of liquidity and a leadership team that is far better equipped to manage our cost structure.’
