JLL CEO Ulbrich on the Global Commercial Real Estate Landscape

JLL is a Fortune 200 company and one of the largest consultancies in the world, specializing in real estate and investment management. JLL generates $23.4 billion in annual revenue, with a global workforce of over 112,000 across 80+ countries. The commercial real estate giant has seen office leasing activity worldwide increase both quarterly and year-over-year, with first-half volumes in 2025 reaching their highest level since 2019.

Christian Ulbrich, President and CEO of JLL, discusses the signs of stability and explains why he sees cause for cautious optimism heading toward the end of the year. Christian speaks with Bailey Lipschultz and Katie Greifeld on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. You're listening to Bloomberg
Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Let's check in on the real estate market and specifically
commercial real estate. We're joined now by Christian Olbrich. He
is the president and CEO of JLL. He is joining
us now on Zoom from Frankfurt, Germany. Christian, great to
have you here with us. And you have a really
unique perch, of course, a very global perch when it
comes to the global commercial real estate market. And so

(00:37):
with that in mind, how does the US stack up
versus the rest of the world. Is this one broad
picture that you can paint with a broad brushstroke or
how much dispersion is there when you take a look globally.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Well, when you look at the western mature economies, there's
the absolute performance and there's the relative performance. The absolute
performance of the US is okay, it's improving over the
last couple of quarters against what we have seen during
the trough at twenty three. But then there's also the
relative performance against the other Western mature economies, and in

(01:12):
compared to that, the US is doing really great and
it's an attractive area for investment for international investors.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Are there parts of the market that you see, I
don't know better set up to succeed, whether that's manufacturing,
industrial's office, where are you seeing the strength right now?

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, again, on the offices side, we saw a really
deep trough post COVID and the discussions around what is
the need for offices going forward?

Speaker 4 (01:39):
But what we have seen.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Over the last couple of months that more and more
of the large corporates are asking their people back into
the office. In fact, when you look at the Fortune
one hundred, more than fifty four percent of the Fortune
one hundred companies in the US expect that people back
into the office for five days a week, and that
has obviously result in a steady increase in demand for

(02:03):
high quality office space. And as we are coming from
a very low base, there's.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
Still a lot of runway for the officers sector.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
With regards to industrial, usually a very strong sector, but
still a little bit shaky from the impacts the unknown
impacts from the teriffs around the world.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
So that is still.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Something where we hope that we get a little bit
more certainty into the market and end up as a
class will recover as well well.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Christian, you talk about the return to office post COVID.
Obviously top of mind for investors, consumers and managers is
the impact of AI. How are you seeing companies within
office thinking about whether or not they can reduce their
in office footprint, not just kind of to account for
people returning to the office, but if you're implementing AI
and you need less white collar jobs, presumably that means

(02:52):
you need less office space.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, that is obviously a big discussion. I would say
this is still too early to really make clear predictions
what's going to happen. At the moment, it doesn't have
any negative impact, you can argue it's up the moment
almost the opposite for the US at least, where we
have a lot of investment into AI and a lot
of new staffing coming into the tech companies. But going

(03:18):
forward that could become a topic. But as I said,
we are still in the early innings where AI is
really showing its impact, and so we cannot say how
that will play out longer term.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, certainly a lot of investment into AI is still unclear,
of course, what that means for the worker and the
buildings that they work in. But I want to wrap
in Federal Reserve rate cut expectations. To this conversation, it
seems like a done deal that we're going to get
a rate cut from the Federal Reserve in less than
two weeks time. What happens for the rest of the
year unclear. But how is that conversation and these shifting

(03:56):
rate cut expectations sort of translating into what property owners
are considering doing with their real estate.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Well, simply speaking, when you have interest rates expected to
come down, that will have an impact on pricing because
the cost of capital for those real estate investors will
come down, and therefore they can afford higher pricing. And
we had that debate now for many many months, first

(04:26):
whether it will come further up, and then when it
will come down. Usually, these smaller changes in interest rates,
and especially the ones which are expected, don't have a
massive impact because people are adapting to it. What the
market doesn't like is any rapid movements, and especially those
unexpected movements. So going forward, those one or two rate

(04:48):
cuts which are now expected for this year, they will
support the overall kind of environment for real estate investment,
but it will not have a massive impact.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
One thing we were talking about at the top of
the show, is the impact of kind of immigration, in
the lack of immigration or some of these ice rates,
and how that impacts manufacturing. What's your read of building
and investing in Donald Trump's kind of push for manufacturing
and bringing manufacturing back to the US. If there's so
much uncertainty around tariffs in the ability to actually get

(05:20):
employees from other countries here in the US to work, well.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
That is certainly an aspect of uncertainty. I mean, before
we had all those debates about terrrifts to the US
or from the US to other countries, we already had
a shortage of skilled labor in the US. So that
hasn't become much better since then. So for everybody who

(05:45):
wants to invest into the US, the question where will
they find the skilled labor is a big debate. And
the uncertainty now about immigration not only the pictures we
see on TV, but also the question around whether the
most talented people around the world who usually aspire to
come to the US will see the US as kind

(06:06):
of their destiny or whether they want to have their
careers elsewhere.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
It's now an open question.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
So whatever going forward helps to calm that situation down
will obviously then also help to bring more certainty for
those who want to invest into the US.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
We're talking to President CEO of JLL, Christian Olbrich. Christian,
just want to ask about something top of mind here
in the US is potentially the IPO or re IPO
of Fanny and Freddie. How are you thinking about that?
What is your view on the potential impact not only
as it relates to US home buyers, but the entire
ecosystem as it relates to real estate. If these are
two companies that end up getting out of government conservatorship

(06:44):
and into the public markets.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Listen, I think we will deal with that situation when
they're a private company, as we have dealt with the
situation when they were a public company public in their
own company. So it is a very important instrument for
the US housing market.

Speaker 4 (07:03):
It has plays a huge role.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
And I'm sure that in any format of an IPO,
whoever will be the owner of those entities will try
to prevail the success of that instrument going forward. And
so we see that relatively relaxed.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
All right, Christian, really appreciate your perspective. Great to get
some time with you, that is, Christian Ulbrick. He is
the President and CEO of j L L, joining US
from Frankfurt, Germany,