JLL’s chief executive of EMEA, Christian Ulbrich, has said that conditions are optimum for mergers and acquisitions within the real estate advisory sector as his firm seeks to expand its European presence.
JLL aims to expand by around 90% through organic expansion and by 10% through acquisitions, said Ulbrich (pictured). So far this year it had made six corporate purchases in Europe and was looking to make acquisitions in countries that were “slightly later in the cycle”.
Ulbrich said: “In the Iberian countries we are very strongly focused on growth. We have a very strong UK business but we still have to expand in countries such as Poland and Germany.”
While the recent macroeconomic turbulence in China was affecting Europe, Ulbrich was confident investment levels would remain strong.
He said:“For the time being there is enough capital that will step in. This will come from US investors and what we would call global sources of capital, which are domiciled mainly in the US but collect capital globally. For the next few years the US-domiciled investors will gain in strength.”
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