Capital markets revenue at Cushman & Wakefield fell by more than a half during the final months of 2022, a “profound” decline in what its top team called a “challenging environment”.
At $268.3m (£224m), fourth-quarter capital markets revenue dropped by 52% in US dollar terms from a record $571.7m a year earlier. That compared to a 13% fall for leasing revenue, at $557.7m; a 16% miss for valuation revenue at 131m; and a 5% rise for property, facilities and project management at $893m.
For the full year, total revenue was up 8% to $10.1bn. Over 2022, capital markets again posted the worst year-on-year performance, down by 12% at $1.18bn.
Despite a tough end to the year, chief executive John Forrester sounded an upbeat note discussing the outlook with analysts.
“What we have seen so far this year across all markets, all sectors and all geographies from capital markets is actually a remarkable level of positivity from investors,” he said. “There is a very significant amount of dry powder… There seems to be a very clear view that as the fundamentals become transparent there will be high levels of activity in both sales and acquisitions.”
Forrester continued: “What we are seeing on a client-by-client conversation basis – I have been around many of the largest investors in the world in the last couple of months – is that they remain ready to deploy and deploy in a very large scale.”
Chief financial officer Neil Johnston added: “In brokerage, we anticipate the environment to remain challenging during the first half of 2023, with brokerage declines similar to Q4 of 2022. We do anticipate sequential improvement in the year-over-year brokerage trends throughout the course of the year, with the timing and strength of these improvements depending on many factors, including the path of price discovery in capital markets and more clarity on occupier decision-making. In addition, we expect that leasing declines will be less pronounced than capital market declines.”
To send feedback, e-mail tim.burke@eg.co.uk or tweet @_tim_burke or @EGPropertyNews
