2019
Annual
Report
Accelerating success.
Revenue
$3.5B
Established in
68
countries
Transaction value
$129B
Managing
2B
square feet
Lease/sale transactions
70,000
$33B
Assets Under Management
Comprised of
18,000+
professionals
The World of Colliers
Revenue
$3.5B
Established in
68
countries
Transaction value
$129B
Managing
2B
square feet
Lease/sale transactions
70,000
$33B
Assets Under Management
Comprised of
18,000+
professionals
All statistics for 2019 are in U.S. dollars and include affiliates.
Why Invest
in Colliers?
Entrepreneurial Culture Drives Success
• Partnership philosophy and 40% insider ownership
ensures alignment of all stakeholders’ interests
• Significant recurring and diversified revenues with
a focus on higher value-add real estate professional
services
• Unique enterprising culture attracts the highest
calibre professionals and clients
Experienced Team With Proven Track Record
• 20% CAGR in total shareholders’ return over 25 years
• On track to complete the five-year Enterprise 2020
Plan to double the size of our company
• Disciplined growth strategy with a focus on growing
faster than overall market
• More than $1.5 billion invested in 85 transactions
over 16 years
Compelling Industry Dynamics and
Growth Opportunities
• $240+ billion global market for commercial real
estate related services
• As one of five global players, significant opportunities
to increase market share, consolidate and add
services in a highly fragmented, growing industry
• Increasing trends toward greater institutional real
estate investment and outsourcing of related services
Asset-light Business Model
• Strong balance sheet with ample access to capital
• High percentage of recurring and repeat earnings
and modest capex requirement support strong
EBITDA to free cash flow conversion
• Proven record of disciplined capital allocation focused
on strategic fit and return on invested capital
Financial Highlights
$3,046
$2,825
$2,435
$359
$311
$4.67
$4.09
$1,897
$1,722
$243
$3.16
$203
$181
$2.44
$2.29
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Revenues US$ millions
Adjusted EBITDA US$ millions
Adjusted EPS US$
(US$ thousands, except per share amounts)
Year ended December 31
Operations1
Revenues
Operating earnings
Net earnings from continuing operations
Net earnings from discontinued operations
Net earnings
Financial Position
Total assets
Long-term debt
Financial leverage2
Shareholders’ equity
Earnings Data
Adjusted EBITDA3
Diluted net earnings per common share
from continuing operations
Adjusted EPS4
Diluted weighted average
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
$ 3,045,811
218,197
137,585
-
137,585
$ 2,825,427
201,398
128,574
-
128,574
$ 2,435,200
167,376
94,074
-
94,074
$ 1,896,724
146,173
91,571
-
91,571
$ 1,721,986
80,384
39,915
1,104
41,019
$ 2,892,714
611,404
1.4
517,299
$ 2,357,580
672,123
1.6
391,973
$ 1,507,560
249,893
0.6
303,014
$ 1,194,779
262,498
0.7
212,513
$ 1,092,421
260,947
0.8
149,493
$ 359,476
$ 311,435
$ 242,824
$ 203,062
$ 181,334
2.57
4.67
2.45
4.09
1.31
3.16
1.75
2.44
0.59
2.29
common shares outstanding (thousands)
Cash dividends per common share
39,981
0.10
39,795
0.10
$
$
39,308
0.10
$
38,868
0.09
37,586
0.20
$
$
Notes
1. New revenue guidance was adopted retrospectively effective January 1, 2018 and accordingly, comparative information for the year ended December 31, 2017 and as at
December 31, 2017 has been restated. Data for 2016 and prior periods have not been restated.
2. Financial leverage expressed in terms of net debt / adjusted EBITDA.
3. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as net earnings from continuing operations before income tax, interest, depreciation, amortization, other (income) expense, acquisition-related
items, spin-off related costs, restructuring costs and stock-based compensation expense.
4. Adjusted EPS is defined as diluted net earnings per common share from continuing operations, adjusted for the effect, after income tax, of non-controlling interest redemption
increment, amortization, acquisition-related items, spin-off related costs, restructuring costs and stock-based compensation expense.
Annual Message to Shareholders
At Colliers,
we are
enterprising.
Colliers is a global leader in
professional real estate services
and investment management.
In 2019, revenues surpassed
$3 billion for the first time.
Over the years, we have built
a well-known and highly
respected global brand and
operating platform.
FROM LEFT John B. Friedrichsen, Chief Operating
Officer, Jay S. Hennick, Global Chairman & CEO,
Christian Mayer, Chief Financial Officer
FRONT COVER Colliers Occupier Services, QBE
Insurance Global & AUS Pac Headquarters,
388 George Street, Sydney CBD, Australia
(Artist’s Impression)
“We believe in fostering an enterprising and
diverse culture, where people are empowered
to do their best work.”
As we enter 2020, the fifth and final year of our current growth
plan, we are on track to meet our goal of doubling the size of
Colliers. When we initially created the plan five years ago, many
thought it was ambitious – and growth plans should be. At
Colliers, we established a target to provide a roadmap for the
future to rally our people around and to effectively measure our
successes against milestones.
We are currently working on our next five-year plan, which we
expect to announce in the fall. Going forward, Colliers will
continue to pursue internal growth as we have in the past and
set our sights on new growth engines to strengthen our overall
business. One example of this is the acquisition two years ago
of Harrison Street Real Estate Capital, establishing Colliers as an
important player in real estate investment management. Another
example will be Dougherty Financial, a company that provides
commercial mortgage banking, debt financing and mortgage
servicing. Both have vast new opportunities, and both will grow
faster by being part of Colliers than they would on their own as
we have seen with Harrison Street. Importantly, they also bring
more recurring and contractual revenue streams to our platform,
positively changing the composition and fundamentals of our
company for the future.
In 2019, Outsourcing, Advisory and Investment Management
represented about 44% of our overall revenues up from 41% the
year before. As we continue to grow our stable revenue streams,
Colliers is evolving into a different kind of professional services
company. We expect to finish this year with annualized revenues
from Outsourcing, Advisory and Investment Management closer
to 50% for the first time. With highly diversified global operations
and higher recurring and contractual revenue streams, the Colliers
business model is stronger and more resilient than ever.
Here are some more highlights from 2019:
• Consistent with our goal to grow faster than the industry average,
we completed four acquisitions last year, two in the U.S. and one
in each of EMEA and Asia, including the strategically important
addition of Synergy Project Management, the market leader in
India, one of the world’s fastest growing economies.
• Our investment in Harrison Street has made us one of the leading
global investors in alternative assets including education, health-
care, storage and social infrastructure with $33 billion in assets
under management, up from $26 billion at the end of last year.
Exciting times are ahead with the changes we’ve made at the
senior level that draw on the depth of our firm’s leadership team.
The appointments of John Friedrichsen as Chief Operating Officer,
with Christian Mayer succeeding him as Chief Financial Officer,
Gil Borok as President & Chief Executive Officer | USA, John Kenny
as Chief Executive Officer | Asia Pacific and Brian Rosen as Chief
Executive Officer | Canada position us well for strong business
performance in the years to come.
Our success is made possible by our people who set Colliers apart
not by what they do, but how they do it. We believe in fostering
an enterprising and diverse culture, where people are empowered
to do their best work, maximize every opportunity and lead the
industry. One of the ways we foster our culture is through our
global employee engagement process, which focuses on collecting,
analyzing and acting on insights from across the organization. In
2019, we were recognized by several independent third parties
as Best Employers in a number of countries in which we operate.
We are proud of these accolades, but more importantly strive to
remain the employer of choice for enterprising professionals
across our organization.
As leaders in the industry, we are always looking for new ways to
provide the best service and expertise to our clients. Technology
plays an increasingly important role and we are focused on
investing in those that enable our professionals to deliver smarter,
more personalized and value-added service to clients. In 2019,
we launched our new web presence globally bringing great
improvements to the functionality and user experience, as well
as a strong foundation on which we will continue to build. In
addition, we continue to invest in proprietary and differentiated
technologies including Colliers 360 for corporate users, Colliers
Office Expert for occupiers and tenants, Colliers Indsite for
industrial users and ColliersCRM for advisors.
At Colliers, we also have a wide lens into new technologies
and startups in order to lead our industry into the future. Our
Proptech Accelerator Powered by Techstars gives us this important
view into innovation from every corner of the world and across
industries. In the second year of our program, we received
hundreds of applications. Our 2019 class represented six
countries and tackled a wide range of solutions, including
quantitative valuation and investing, crowdfunding, asset
fractionalization, machine learning, artificial intelligence,
blockchain, as well as augmented and virtual reality. Our Demo
Day event celebrated their accomplishments through the program
FROM TOP Colliers Capital Markets, Copenhagen Towers,
Copenhagen, Denmark; Colliers Proptech Accelerator Demo
Day, Toronto, Canada; Colliers Global Occupier Services,
Nestlé Headquarters, Vevey, Switzerland
as they presented to an audience of more than 1,000 industry
professionals, investors and technology leaders.
We recognize the critical importance of presenting a strong, unified
brand that conveys the power of our global enterprise to the
market. This year, we launched a refreshed brand that reflects our
industry leadership, enterprising culture and global platform for
growth. In these pages, you’ll see new brand elements, including a
refreshed logo that is designed to provide more prominence to
the Colliers name especially in digital applications. I look forward
to maximizing the impact of our global brand in 2020 and beyond.
Our shareholders know that creating value has always been at
the forefront of our efforts. That’s because our leadership owns
approximately 40% of the equity in our company far exceeding
our public competitors. Over the past 25 years, we have delivered
compound annual returns in share value of almost 20%. That
record of performance is impressive by any standard and speaks
volumes about our ability to continue to maximize the potential
of our business in the future.
Finally, I’d like to thank our business leaders, professionals and
employees for their enterprising work over the past year. Together,
we take pride in building upon our strong foundation as we continue
to write the story of Colliers. I would especially like to thank Michael
Harris, who will not be standing for re-election at the upcoming
shareholders meeting. Over the past 14 years, Michael has been a
diligent and hardworking director and I have personally valued his
contribution and thoughtful insights. We wish him well.
Colliers is better today than it’s ever been before. In addition
to building a world-class, internationally and institutionally
recognized global brand and operating platform, we are the
fastest-growing business in our industry with more stable revenue
streams than ever. I’m deeply proud of our accomplishments over
this past decade and look forward to the next.
Jay S. Hennick
Corporate Responsibility
At Colliers, we do what’s right for our
clients, people and communities. As a
leading global commercial real estate
and investment firm, we have a unique
opportunity to lead change for a better
future.
Our People
We are proud to promote an enterprising culture that empowers
our people to do their best work, collaborating with our global
experts to maximize every opportunity and lead the industry.
Diversity & Inclusion
Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to our culture. Our
2019 engagement survey results showed that 75% of our
people believe we have a work environment that is accepting
of diverse backgrounds and ways of thinking, signalling that
our teams across the world are better because of their
different skills and prior experiences. We are focused on
driving inclusion and engagement across all our regions and
have developed various programs to support this goal, such
as the Colliers Diversity & Inclusion Program in North America
and Colliers Balance in Australia.
Our global partnership with Catalyst provides a wide range
of resources, research and events to accelerate progress for
women in the workplace. Approximately 28% of leaders at
Colliers are women and promoting diversity remains a key
factor in our recruitment and people development efforts.
Culture
At Colliers, we are committed to fostering a positive, productive
environment that attracts and retains the industry’s best.
Over the past several years, we have conducted employee
engagement surveys through Kincentric with outstanding
results. In 2019, we were proud to be recognized as Best
Employers in Australia, Colombia, Poland and Philippines.
Career Development
We believe that investing in our people is an investment in
our future. We provide a range of development opportunities,
including our Acceleration and NextGen programs, which train
the next generation of real estate professionals to be industry
leaders. We host intensive, live-in training programs called Global
Camps to accelerate global collaboration, business wins and
client management. To deliver a strong succession bench, we
focus heavily on elevating our people through our Management
Development Program. We also partner with Harvard Business
School to offer courses designed to optimize our peoples’
management skills and propel professional growth.
Sustainability
Caring for our environment is an important part of doing what’s
right. We deliver solutions that create more sustainable and
healthier workplaces, helping real estate occupiers, owners and
investors realize the benefits of sustainability strategies including
cost savings, compliance and improved productivity.
For example, the Real Estate Management Services (REMS) team
in Canada has set goals to increase Green Building Certifications
to 45% by the end of 2020 and to track 100% of utility usage in
managed properties by 2021 as part of its GreenSpace program.
In 2019, the team successfully reported into the Global Real
Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) for the second consecutive
year, improving on their 2018 score.
Technology
We believe that strategic investments in technologies can enable
our experts to deliver smarter, faster and more personalized
solutions for our clients. Our Colliers 360 for corporate users,
Colliers Office Expert for occupiers and tenants, Colliers Indsite for
industrial users and ColliersCRM for our advisors are examples of
our technology strategy in action.
The Colliers Proptech Accelerator powered by Techstars is part of
our focus on targeted innovation. The industry-first, global program
combines Techstars’ expertise in early-stage technology with our
real estate expertise and global network. The Class of 2019,
representing six countries, worked with more than 150 mentors
from Colliers and the broader industry over three months to
explore pilots and partnerships, refine their business plans and
gain traction in the market. The program culminated in Demo Day
– the stage on which startups presented to an audience of more
than 1,000 Colliers clients, professionals, industry leaders and
technology investors. As the proud title sponsor of the Buildings
Connect feature of The Buildings Show and technology partner of
The Real Estate Forum, we were excited to add a digital innovation
lens to the industry in 2019.
Our Communities
We are passionate about everything we do and that extends to
community involvement. As a company, and as individuals, we
actively work for the betterment of our local communities. In the
spirit of our enterprising nature, our approach to community
giving is centred on supporting causes that our people and clients
are most passionate about such as raising funds for Wipeout
Dementia on World Alzheimer’s Day and Mental Health UK. We
also updated our paid leave policy in Australia in recognition
of our people who volunteered with emergency services
organizations to help communities through the bushfire crisis.
Governance and Ethics
We govern ourselves in accordance with established corporate
governance principles and applicable laws. Our Board of Directors
provides strong leadership and oversight to our business operations.
Our people are required to adhere to and acknowledge our
Global Code of Ethics and Conduct annually. Through Colliers
Direct, our anonymous reporting hotline, our people can report
concerns about behaviours that may be illegal, unethical or
harmful. Reports are investigated by the appropriate executive
team members or, where appropriate, members of the Board.
Notice of
Shareholders
Meeting
The annual meeting of the
shareholders will be held
on Tuesday April 7, 2020
at 11:00am ET at the
TMX Broadcast Centre,
130 King Street West
Toronto, Canada
Global Head Office
1140 Bay Street, Suite 4000
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5S 2B4
Phone: 416 960 9500
Registrar & Transfer Agent
TSX Trust Company
Phone: 1 866 393 4891
Email: tmxeinvestorservices@tmx.com
Stock Exchange Listing
NASDAQ Global Select Market – CIGI
Toronto Stock Exchange – CIGI
Learn more about how we accelerate
success at corporate.colliers.com,
Twitter @Colliers or LinkedIn.
colliers.com
ABOVE Harrison Street, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne, UK; Colliers office, Chicago, USA
About Colliers International
Colliers International (NASDAQ, TSX: CIGI) is a leading real estate
professional services and investment management company. With
operations in 68 countries, our more than 15,000 enterprising
professionals work collaboratively to provide expert advice to
maximize the value of property for real estate occupiers, owners
and investors. For more than 25 years, our experienced leadership,
owning approximately 40% of our equity, has delivered compound
annual investment returns of almost 20% for shareholders. In
2019, corporate revenues were more than $3.0 billion ($3.5 billion
including affiliates), with $33 billion of assets under management
in our investment management segment.