CBRE has lifted its earnings outlook for the financial year after reporting continued better-than-expected performance in the second quarter of 2025.
By 14:48 London time CBRE's share price had lifted 7.74% to $157.99, which indicates a market cap of €47.18 billion. CBRE said its 2025 core earnings per share outlook has increased to $6.10-$6.20 from $5.80-$6.10 previously, reflecting better than 20% growth at the midpoint of the range.
The world's largest real estate broker reported Generally Accepted Accounting Principles earnings per share up 71% to $0.72 and core EPS up 47% to $1.19, while revenue was up 16% to $9.8 billion in the quarter to end of June.
What CBRE terms "resilient revenue", which is revenue from businesses including property and investment management and servicing, was up 17% to $8.1 billion while transactional businesses revenue was up 15% to nearly $1.7 billion.
GAAP net income was up 65% to $215 million while its core earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortisation was up 30% to $658 million. Liquidity also increased in the period by $1.2 billion to $4.7 billion.
“The strong momentum we exhibited to start the year continued in the second quarter. Despite uncertainty in the macro environment, occupier and investor clients largely proceeded with executing their plans,” said Bob Sulentic, CBRE’s chair and chief executive, in a statement. “Resilient revenue rose 17%, surpassing the 15% growth rate for transactional businesses. Resilient revenue growing faster than transactional revenue during a market recovery attests to the progress we’ve made with our resilient businesses.”
Sulentic added that in light of its outperformance in the year’s first half and the pipelines across its business it expects to set a new earnings peak two years after the 2023 trough in the commercial real estate downturn. "We anticipate this outcome even though capital markets activity remains well below prior peak levels.”
In terms of the transactional business, global leasing revenue increased 14% (13% in local currency), in line with expectations, reaching the highest level for any second quarter in the company history.
The United States saw leasing revenue rise 14% overall, led by office and industrial. Europe, the Middle East & Africa "set the pace", CBRE said, with leasing revenue growth of 18% (13% local currency), driven by the United Kingdom and Germany, while Asia Pacific leasing revenue rose 12% (11% local currency), led by India and Japan.
Global property sales revenue rose 20% (19% local currency), also exceeding expectations.
The United States saw 25% growth, with particular strength flagged in data centres, office and retail. APAC grew by 24% (21% local currency) and EMEA by 19% (13% local currency).
Mortgage origination revenue rose 44% (same local currency), reflecting particularly strong lending by government agencies as well as debt funds and CMBS lenders.
The facilities management platform's revenue increased 17% with strong growth across what CBRE terms the enterprise and local businesses. In enterprise, growth was led by data centre hyperscalers as well as the technology, healthcare and industrial sectors. The local business continued to expand its foothold in the United States while increasing its business base in the United Kingdom, its largest market.
Property management revenue rose 30% while contributions from Industrious, the flexible workplace operator acquired in early January 2025, also added to the growth rate.