Colliers International Group Inc. (Colliers) operates as a commercial real estate services provider worldwide.
The company offers a full range of commercial real estate services in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand, China and several other countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Segments
Real Estate Services
The company is one of the top global providers of professional real estate services to owners, occupiers and investors. From essential t...
Colliers International Group Inc. (Colliers) operates as a commercial real estate services provider worldwide.
The company offers a full range of commercial real estate services in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand, China and several other countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Segments
Real Estate Services
The company is one of the top global providers of professional real estate services to owners, occupiers and investors. From essential transaction and debt finance services to outsourcing in Property Management, Valuation & Advisory and Loan Servicing, the company’s services span the commercial real estate spectrum. The company’s 4,500 professional advisors in Capital Markets and Leasing, and 4,000 professionals in Outsourcing work with all asset classes, including office, industrial, data centers, retail, multi-family, hospitality, health care and mixed-use properties. In 2024, the company completed 46,000 sale and lease transactions for a total transaction value of $100 billion and managed 2 billion square feet.
Capital Markets
The company’s Capital Markets services include property sales brokerage for commercial clients as well as debt finance services related to the origination and sale/placement of mortgage loans. The company’s advisors assist buyers and sellers with the acquisition or disposition process and assist borrowers and lenders with the financing process. The company’s advisors typically perform their services for commissions calculated based on the value of a transaction. The company executes transactions across a diverse client base, including corporations, financial institutions, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, governments and individuals.
The company provides Capital Markets services in the following areas:
Property Sales: Colliers’ sales advisors work collaboratively to provide real estate expertise to the company’s clients, acting in a consultancy capacity to help each client maximize investment returns, whether as a buyer, seller or borrower. The company’s advisors are organized into office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality, healthcare, alternatives and special purpose teams in order to drive thought leadership for each major asset class. Many team members also represent subspecialties in areas such as affordable housing, data centers, land, self-storage and transit-oriented development. These investment teams are further organized in subsets to meet the needs of both the company’s institutional and private capital clients, recognizing that these client groupings have different needs. These investment teams understand the intricacies of single asset and portfolio executions, and with the assistance of the company’s advisors, are globally connected with active market participants. Integrally supporting these investment teams are national and/or regional groups of financing advisors that help both the company’s institutional and private capital clients with senior and subordinated debt strategies and placements with a global network of capital providers. Many of the company’s financing advisors have experience helping the company’s clients with equity strategies and placements, including partnership capitalizations and recapitalizations. The company’s financing professionals are in the market continuously with these capital sources, providing its clients with significant market intelligence and leverage when evaluating their financing needs. The company’s teams work with each service line, including property management, leasing, and valuations to serve the broader business needs of each client.
Debt Finance Services: Through Colliers Mortgage, the company provides specialty debt financing for multifamily housing, healthcare and senior housing real estate through the U.S. government sponsored agencies. This includes origination, underwriting and asset management for Fannie Mae, the Federal Housing Administration/the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (FHA/HUD) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Loan origination and placement lead to Loan Servicing (see ‘Loan Servicing’ above). Colliers Mortgage also provides commercial property loan placement across most asset classes to institutional investors, as well as loan syndication. In markets outside the U.S., the company provides loan placement services across a variety of asset classes.
Mortgage Investment Banking: Colliers Securities provides brokerage, investment banking, capital markets services, public finance services and other real estate related activities in the U.S.
Leasing
The company provides Lease brokerage services to owners and occupiers of commercial real estate across all major asset classes. The company has long-standing relationships with both large and medium-sized occupiers and owners. The company’s services are engaged on a repeat basis for lease renewals and relocations.
The company provides Leasing services as follows:
Landlord Representation: Agency advisors work on behalf of property owners to search for and obtain tenants by strategically positioning and promoting the property through various campaigns and marketing channels. Agency advisors work closely with the company’s Property Management professionals to secure tenants for properties the company manages.
Tenant Representation: The company’s advisors work on behalf of tenants to lease the right space in the right location and secure the most favorable terms. The company’s advisors help to turn a lease, often the second-greatest expenditure for a business after payroll, from a cost center into a competitive advantage that can elevate a client’s brand, streamline their operations, attract leading talent and make a meaningful impact to their business.
Outsourcing
The company’s Outsourcing services include Property Management, Valuation & Advisory and Loan Servicing. In addition, the company consults with large occupiers in managing their overall real estate portfolios and transactions, providing corporate and workplace solutions to improve execution across multiple markets. Professional staff combine proprietary technology with high level strategic planning, portfolio management, lease administration and facilities management to deliver bespoke solutions to the company’s clients. Outsourcing services revenues are derived from fees, which are typically contractual, both fixed and fee for service, and contract terms are often multi-year providing recurring or repeat revenues.
The company’s Outsourcing services include:
Property Management: The company provides oversight and management of the daily operations of a single property or portfolio of properties and provide on-going strategic advice on ways in which clients can maximize the value of their properties. Services are provided under long-term contract and include building operations and maintenance, facilities management, lease administration, property accounting and financial reporting, contract management and construction management. The company ensures that it implements the owner’s specific property value enhancement objectives through the maximization of opportunities to help clients ensure excellent tenant relations while maximizing property level cash flows.
Valuation & Advisory: The company provides clients with an opinion of a property’s value that complies with a client’s requirements and applicable professional standards and regulations to offer a nuanced understanding of the property and broader market trends. The company’s advisors leverage technology to offer clients both speed and accuracy while maintaining a dedicated project leader and senior management oversight to ensure quality and accountability. Services include valuation and appraisal review and management, portfolio or single asset valuation, financial reporting advisory, arbitration consulting, research, highest and best use studies, property tax reviews, as well as appeals and litigation support.
Occupier Services: The company works as an extension of a client’s team to provide deep expertise and a comprehensive set of portfolio management, transaction management, project management, workplace strategy (including ‘return to office’), strategic consulting, and property and asset management, as well as other real estate services. The company’s Occupier Services clients are typically companies or public sector institutions with large, highly distributed real estate portfolios. The company typically enters into long-term, contractual relationships with these clients to ensure that real estate strategies are developed to support their overall business needs. This service line offers clients a suite of services under the leadership and accountability of an account leader who is responsible for overall performance around the world. Many of the company’s contracts contain fees that are tied to performance against client objectives (such as cost and footprint reduction, cycle-time improvement, and customer satisfaction) instead of fees based solely on transaction commissions. The company’s Occupier Services teams have a unified value proposition which is to deliver customized, accountable, and innovative real estate solutions that result in the best service experience and alignment with the company’s client’s core business strategy. The company has developed technology through Colliers360 (which provides clients with user-friendly, fast and flexible dashboarding and analytics which allows the company to measure performance and help the company’s clients make efficient, well-informed decisions regarding their real estate portfolio. Colliers360 also includes business intelligence that populates data from various independent and client related sources. The company’s Workplace Expert tool recommends office environments and potential configurations tailored to their client’s specific business needs. The company also provides lease administration, transaction, project management and facilities management systems. Occupier Services revenues are recognized under the respective service lines that are offered in the contract.
Loan Servicing: The company services all loans originated by its debt finance operations, as well as certain loans originated by third parties. The company’s services are provided under long-term contracts and include managing the administrative aspects of the loan, collection of monthly payments, maintenance of records and management of escrow funds among others.
Engineering
The company is a rapidly growing player in the engineering design and consulting, project management, architectural and environmental services sector, with more than 9,000 employees globally. Backed by strong infrastructure renewal, energy transition and urbanization tailwinds, the engineering sector is a large and highly fragmented market with opportunities to grow internally and consolidate through acquisitions.
The company’s client base is diversified with a balanced mix of both public and private sector clients. The company’s client centered approach enables the company to foster long-term relationships which translate to repeat work from the company’s clients. As a result of the company’s focus on service and client diversification, the company’s business is resilient, allowing the company the ability to respond to changing market conditions quickly and effectively.
The company offers a full range of consulting and engineering design services for infrastructure transportation, environmental services, property & buildings and water end-markets. The company’s professionals include licensed engineers, project managers, planners, surveyors, architects and environmental scientists.
Infrastructure & Transportation: The company’s professionals engage with public and private clients to plan, design and project manage their assets, including bridges & structure, highway and traffic engineering, construction engineering and inspection, water, traffic planning and rail. The company has long-standing relationships with federal, state/provincial and municipal government agencies as well as large utility, telecom and rail firms.
Environmental Services: The company’s environmental experts offer a range of service to the company’s public and private sector clients, including air quality assessments, brownfield redevelopment, environmental impact assessments, ground water resource development, site remediation, and noise studies, among others. The company also has geotechnical capabilities, including geotechnical engineering, geo-structural design, construction observation and testing, as well as laboratory material testing services.
Property & Buildings: The company offers land development and monitoring services, including for residential, commercial, industrial and renewable energy sectors. The company is a full-service design business, providing expertise in commercial, industrial, government and education buildings. The company works with owners throughout the building lifecycle, including conducting highest and best use studies, feasibility assessments, detailed design and construction management.
Water: The company offers expertise in water, storm and wastewater management in all areas of feasibility, design and master planning. The company’s services span from capital improvements and system planning, to design of municipal and industrial treatment plants, sewer collection and water distributions systems, distribution system modeling, hydrogeologic investigations and environmental assessments.
The company provides Project Management services for a wide range of projects globally, typically acting as the owner’s representative. These services stretch from conception to the final commissioning of the asset. Services include bid document review, construction monitoring and delivery management, contract administration and integrated cost control, development management, facility and engineering functionality, milestone and performance monitoring, quality assurance, risk management and strategic project consulting. The company’s projects span across multiple industries, including infrastructure, education, healthcare, utilities, federal, state and municipal, as well as projects for occupiers and landlords.
The majority of the company’s contracts are medium to long-term in duration. Clients generally have a portfolio of assets which leads to opportunities for repeat business and the development of long-term relationships. Contracts are structured on a fixed price or cost-plus basis.
Investment Management
The company’s Investment Management segment is a global alternative asset manager with long-standing, cycle tested expertise across high growth and defensive sectors within real assets. The company’s differentiated approach focuses on long-duration, demographic, needs-based and essential real assets; middle-market infrastructure like communications, transport, energy, and utilities; real asset private credit; and core and opportunistic real estate strategies. The company invests capital for the long-term through the company’s differentiated strategies that have strong tailwinds, are resilient through cycles, and are designed to deliver top-tier risk-adjusted returns. The company serves more than 900 clients across the globe, including institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, public and corporate pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, foundations and family offices.
Since 2016, when the company first established Investment Management operations in Europe, with the acquisition of ICADE, the company’s platform has grown substantially, fueled by strong fundraising across all the company’s products and investment vehicles.
The company’s investment products consist of (i) perpetual funds, (ii) long-dated funds and (iii) separately managed accounts. The company generates contractual management fee revenue from each of the funds and separately managed accounts under the company’s management and has an opportunity to generate performance fee revenues on long-dated funds under the company’s management.
Perpetual (open-end) funds
In the company’s perpetual funds, management fees are based on net asset value (‘NAV’). NAV is calculated quarterly using data from third party valuation advisors to determine the current market value of the private real estate and real assets in the funds.
Investors in the company’s perpetual funds may invest on a quarterly basis at the then-current NAV. Investors can also request to have their interests redeemed on a periodic basis, at the then-current NAV. There are typically restrictions around redemption requests, including lock-up periods and gating provisions that restrict the amount that can be redeemed in any quarterly period in order to preserve fund liquidity and to ensure the efficient operation of the fund for the benefit of all investors. The company also has flexibility in the timing of funding redemptions given the underlying illiquid nature of the funds’ private real estate and real assets.
Long-dated (closed-end) funds
The company’s long-dated funds typically have a ten-year term with two one-year extensions, at the option of the manager.
The company generates management fees based on committed capital or invested capital in these funds. Committed capital is used to calculate fees during the investment period, which typically comprises the first 3 years of a fund’s life. Management fees commence on the date of a fund’s ‘first close’, which is the date that the initial investors legally commit to invest in the fund. Additional investors may commit to invest in the fund during the investment period, however they are required to pay management fees from the ‘first close’ date. This results in the company’s recognition of ‘catch-up’ management fees when such investors make commitments after the first close date. After the end of the investment period, the management fee is calculated based on invested capital, which is typically 90-95% of the committed capital amount.
In addition to the contractual management fee, the company is also entitled to earn performance fees (sometimes referred to as carried interest) on long-dated funds, provided that the company meet or exceed certain contractually agreed preferred return targets. Carried interest revenue is recognized when it is highly probable that such return targets will be exceeded, typically when the fund is near the end of its life and the underlying fund assets have been sold or are in the process of being sold. Colliers is only entitled to receive carried interest on funds established on or after acquisition dates of its Investment Management firms.
Separately Managed Accounts
The company also has separately managed accounts (‘SMAs’) where the company agrees to provide investment management services to individual institutional investors to fulfill their specific long-term investment objectives, investing directly in private real estate and real assets. SMAs are subject to contractual management agreements, with management fees earned based on NAV and/or as a transaction fee in connection with the acquisition or disposition of assets.
Focus on recurring service lines
Colliers has focused on growing its high-value recurring revenue streams – Outsourcing, Engineering and Investment Management.
Growth Strategy
The company’s long-standing growth strategy, which the company refers to as ‘The Colliers Way’ is the foundation of the company’s success. The key principles of The Colliers Way are described below:
Enterprising culture, achieved through partnership philosophy, decentralized business model, and owner’s mindset for all employees.
Internal growth, achieved through participating in massive end markets for the company’s services, continuous investment in top talent, and performance-based compensation programs throughout the company.
Acquisitions: Participating in massive end markets conducive to consolidation, seeking out synergies and adjacencies with existing businesses, and disciplined acquisition process.
Geographic Locations
The company delivers services from various offices in 35 countries (not including non-owned licensee/affiliates). Operationally, the company has organized its business and report the company’s results through three segments. For the year ended December 31, 2024:
Real Estate Services represented 64% of the company’s global revenues, in thirty four countries; Americas, EMEA and APAC are 66%, 18% and 16% of the total Real Estate services revenues.
Engineering represented 26% of the company’s global revenues, comprising operations in twenty six countries; Americas, EMEA and APAC are 69%, 20% and 11% of the total Engineering revenues.
Investment Management represented 10% of the company’s revenues, comprising operations in four countries. Americas and EMEA are 78% and 22% of the total Investment Management revenues.
Seasonality
The company historically generates peak revenues and earnings in the month of December followed by a low in January and February as a result of the seasonal timing of closings on Capital Markets transactions. Revenues and earnings during the balance of the year are relatively even. The Capital Markets operations comprised 16% of the company’s 2024 annual consolidated revenues.
Trademarks
In certain Real Estate Services markets where the company does not have company-owned operations, independent affiliates operate using the ‘Colliers International’ and ‘Colliers’ brands and trademarks under license from the company. The company has affiliates in 35 countries around the world.
History
Colliers International Group Inc. was founded in 1972. The company was incorporated in 1988.
