Savills had a strong end to 2016 after a slowdown following the EU referendum, with the agent saying it completed a significant number of commercial and residential transactions around the world.
In a pre-close trading statement for the year to December, it said it benefited from the further devaluation of sterling and it anticipates results for the year will be “meaningfully ahead” of previous expectations.
It said that in the UK it increased market share in commercial transactions as a result of overseas interest after the referendum.
In the residential market results were better than expected, with currency playing a large part in driving the top end of the market. It said these factors mitigated the reduction in transactional activity during the year.
Savills Investment Management completed a number of disposals earlier than expected as part of the wind down of the German mutual funds managed by the former SEB Investment Management business, which was bought in September 2015. This however means the transactions will not go on the books in 2017.
It said performance was strong in Asia Pacific and Continental Europe, offsetting a flat performance from the US business where it said corporations deferred decision making before the US election.
The trading statement said: “In the current year, against the backdrop of heightened uncertainty over global economic prospects, geopolitical risks and rising bond yields, we expect a tempering of the strong transaction volumes of recent times in many markets. Accordingly we retain our original expectations for 2017.”
Full-year results will be released on 22 March.
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