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

Bob Sulentic: This is the kind of environment that generally plays well for CBRE. When times are uncertain, it’s harder to generate commissions on either leases or sales or financing opportunities. Brokers tend to want to go to a platform that’s more likely to support them, so better information, bigger base of clients, better brand, a company that can be well positioned to invest in a downturn because they have a strong balance sheet. We’re going to generate a lot of cash in 2023 and 2024, and the brokers that pay attention, the more sophisticated brokers know that and they know we’ll be able to continue to invest in our business. It helps us retain and it helps us recruit, and Jack Durburg and the advisory team had a big year of recruiting last year and we’re expecting that to play out the same way this year.

Patrick O’Shaughnessy: Great, thank you. Then last one for me, your in-process development projects decreased pretty substantially quarter over quarter, and there was some commentary about, I think, just some reticence given the macro landscape. How are you looking at that as we move into 2023? Could it slide a little bit further in the near term, or would you expect that to start to rebuild?

Emma Giamartino: Our in-process, just to frame what our in-process is, that is projects that have either started construction or we own the land and it is expected to start construction within 12 months. The decline was primarily driven by projects in that latter category that we now believe are going to be more than 12 months off, and so they’ve been moved into the pipeline category. We’ll continue to evaluate our in-process portfolio, but if things move out of in-process at this point, again it’s projects that won’t be starting for more than 12 months, it will not impact 2023. It would have an impact to 2024 and beyond.

Patrick O’Shaughnessy: Great, thank you.

Operator: Thank you. As there are no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Bob Sulentic for closing comments.

Bob Sulentic: Thanks everyone for joining us, and we look forward to talking to you again when we report on our first quarter.

Operator: This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.