In the first nine months of this year CBRE made a loss of $31m on revenues of $2.9b - revenues $1b lower than the first nine months of 2008. In other words the 30 000-strong business has almost managed to slash costs in line with a 25% reduction in revenues, according to the Q3 results released today.
As with JLL's results released yesterday, the fresh numbers for June-September 2009 are the more interesting. In the last three months agreement was reached with the banks to restructure and extend $985m of bank loans. That has raised the quarterly interest payment from $43m to $54m.
Global revenues in Q3 2009 against Q3 2008 are down 21% to $1023m, so marginally better than over the nine month period. Costs are down 19% to $969m. That produced a $57m operating profit - boosted by a $3m gain on selling some CBRE-owned property.
EMEA - which is mostly the UK and continental Europe - has seen a steeper than average fall in revenues, which are down 30% from $271m to $193m. But EMEA chairman Mike Strong has cut costs a little bit faster and produced an operating profit of $11m.
A good overall result for CBRE, given the state of the world in early spring, but, in revenue terms, not quite as good as JLL's. As their smaller rival will be keen to point out, global revenues at JLL are down 12%, not 25%, in the nine months to September.
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