A slowdown in the UK investment market ahead of the EU referendum has resulted in JLL’s European arm making a $10m (£6.9m) operating loss in the first quarter.
The company said the EMEA division’s loss was “primarily impacted by a decrease in the UK performance in anticipation of the forthcoming vote regarding continued membership in the European Union”.
The first-quarter operating loss is a worse performance on the same period last year, which saw the company’s EMEA division deliver a $3m operating loss.
The EMEA capital markets division was a prime cause of the slowdown as its revenues dipped by 14% to $64.6m.
The leasing division was also down on the year before, posting revenues of $43.5m, a slide of 10% on the year before.
However, recurring-revenue divisions did better, with property and facilities management revenue up 1% to £52.2m and advisory and consulting fees up 3% to $48.9m.
Overall operating revenue across EMEA was up 1% to $256m in dollar terms compared with the first three months of 2015.
Combined with other revenues, Europe was up 13% in dollar terms on the year before, led by Germany, France, MENA and Benelux.
Globally the business was up 11% in terms of overall revenue for the quarter at $1.2bn, with fee revenues globally up 8% to $1bn.
LaSalle Investment Management grew its revenue to $100m, a growth rate of 11% on the year before, driven by transaction fees, which rose from $6.1m in Q1 2015 to $24.2m.
