CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

In terms of M&A, we are willing to go up to two times leverage for a transformational deal. If it was highly transformational, we’d go slightly above that, but that’s the range that we’re looking at. Then with capital allocation overall, we want to, at the very least, end the year net leverage neutral, but we’re willing to go above that for buybacks as well.

Chandni Luthra: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Steve Sakwa with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Steve Sakwa: Yes, thanks. Good morning. Bob, just circling back on the sales activity, I’m just curious, in your mind, is the potential pick-up in activity more a function of the overall level of interest rates or more of a stabilization of rates and spreads, where people can actually know what their cost of capital is before they start to underwrite transactions? I’m just trying to figure out which one’s the bigger lever, the actual rate or the stabilization of rates.

Bob Sulentic: I think probably right now, it’s the stabilization of rates. The other thing, Steve, that I think is going on is people are recognizing that with all the concerns about the economy, and obviously there are considerable concerns, the fundamentals in industrial and multi-family are really strong – really low vacancy rates, every reason in the world to believe that rental rates will go up at least somewhat, and that’s in what’s going to be a tough year and then longer term, it’s going to be better. Then you have this just very human thing about sellers being ready to sell and buyers being ready to buy with capital and sitting on the sidelines for a long time. As soon as two or three circumstances start to line up favorably – fundamentals, stabilization of rents or rates, rates coming down a little bit, some talk in the market that maybe the recession won’t be as bad as we thought.

When you get that confluence of circumstances, things start to shake loose a little bit, and as soon as one or two buyers go into the market, others start to get into the market because they’re afraid they’ll be left behind.

Steve Sakwa: Okay, thanks. Then secondly, I was just hoping maybe Emma could provide a little more detail on what happened to Telford. It sounded like maybe costs got out of control. I just thought maybe you could expand on that a little bit, just to make sure we understand the problems and what’s been rectified moving forward.

Emma Giamartino: Yes, absolutely. I do want to step back, and there’s two major things going on that are different. The first is the U.K. put in a fire safety act which is still under review, related to a very terrible fire that happened in 2017, so through that act, they’re requiring all home builders who have built a building over a certain size over the past 30 years to bring those buildings up to the current fire safety standard, so as a result, we and all other homebuilders in the U.K. are having to go through this process of determining what the cost will be across all of our buildings that we’ve built over the next five, 10 years, as long as it takes us to remediate those issues, and that’s where you see the non-cash, about $140 million reserve that we took in Q4.