One-glance verdict
Within fair range
$293.88 our estimate vs market $324.40
Wall Street consensus: $425.30 (44.7% higher than our fair-value estimate)
10% above our estimate
Fundamentals snapshot
Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated
JLL · NYQ · Real Estate · Real Estate Services
Current price
$324.40
52-week range
$259.83 - $393.84
Market cap
$14.92B
Balance sheet
Watch
10.93x Adequate
Net debt $2.76B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
2 Risks
3 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 5.0% last year.
- Reward Returns 13.5% on equity, ahead of 60% of its peers.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 0.9% (peer median: 1.6%).
- Risk Operating margin compressed from 4.7% to 4.6% over 3 years.
What this company does
Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated
Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) acts as an expert guide for businesses and investors dealing with large properties like office buildings, warehouses, and shopping malls. The company makes money from one-time fees when it helps clients buy, sell, or rent properties, and also collects steadier payments for managing those buildings over the long term. Since companies need more space when the economy is growing, JLL's success often reflects the health of the overall business environment.
How the company got here
Jones Lang LaSalle, or JLL, has a very long history, with roots tracing back to an auctioneer business started in London in 1783. The modern company was formed in 1999 through a merger of two firms: the London-based Jones Lang Wootton and the Chicago-based LaSalle Partners. This combination created a global real estate services powerhouse. Over the years, JLL has grown by acquiring other companies to expand its capabilities, such as the 2008 purchase of The Staubach Company and the 2019 acquisition of HFF, which significantly boosted its presence in the U.S.
What it actually does
JLL is a professional services company that specializes in real estate and investment management. Think of them as a one-stop shop for companies and investors dealing with commercial properties like office buildings, warehouses, retail centers, and hotels. They don't own most of the real estate themselves; instead, they provide a wide range of services to help their clients buy, build, occupy, manage, and invest in these properties. For example, they might help a company find and lease new office space, manage the day-to-day operations of a shopping mall for its owner, or advise a large investor on which properties to buy.
Markets Advisory
This is a core part of JLL's business and involves helping clients with local real estate needs. It includes services like agency leasing (helping landlords find tenants for their buildings) and tenant representation (helping companies find and negotiate for space to rent). They also offer property management services, where they handle the day-to-day operations of a building for the owner. This segment earns money through fees and commissions on these transactions and services.
Capital Markets
This segment is all about the money side of real estate. The Capital Markets team helps clients buy and sell entire buildings or portfolios of properties, a service known as investment sales. They also assist clients in getting funding for their real estate projects through debt and equity advisory (helping them get loans or find investment partners). This part of the business is very transaction-focused, meaning its revenue can go up or down depending on the health of the real estate investment market.
Work Dynamics
This division focuses on providing a broad range of services to large companies that occupy a lot of real estate. This includes integrated facilities management (managing all aspects of a company's buildings, from maintenance to mailrooms), project management (overseeing the construction or renovation of a space), and workplace strategy consulting (advising companies on how to design their offices to be more efficient and better for employees). This segment often involves long-term contracts, providing a steady and recurring stream of revenue for JLL.
JLL Technologies
This is a newer and growing part of JLL's business that focuses on technology for the real estate industry, often called "proptech". They develop and sell software solutions that help building owners manage their properties more efficiently, for example, by using AI to optimize energy consumption. This segment also invests in promising real estate technology startups through its venture capital fund, JLL Spark. The goal is to use technology to improve services for clients and create new sources of revenue.
LaSalle Investment Management
This segment acts as an investment manager for large institutional investors (like pension funds) and wealthy individuals who want to invest in real estate. LaSalle pools money from these clients and invests it in a variety of properties around the world. They earn fees for managing these investments. This provides a more stable and recurring revenue stream compared to the transaction-based parts of the business.
What management is betting on now
JLL's current strategy, called "Accelerate 2030," focuses on several key areas. They are heavily investing in technology, particularly data analytics and artificial intelligence, to provide better insights to their clients and improve their own efficiency. The company also aims to grow its more stable, recurring revenue businesses, like Work Dynamics and LaSalle Investment Management, to be less dependent on the ups and downs of the real estate market. Additionally, JLL is focused on sustainability, helping clients make their buildings more environmentally friendly, which is a growing area of demand.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
Revenue
$6.93B
Net income
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Diluted EPS
4.59
Operating cash flow
$488.10M
Free cash flow
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Sources
Revenue
$6.39B
Net income
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Diluted EPS
3.33
Operating cash flow
$-755.00M
Free cash flow
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Revenue
$7.61B
Net income
$792.10M
Diluted EPS
8.33
Operating cash flow
$1.01B
Free cash flow
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Revenue
$6.51B
Net income
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Diluted EPS
4.61
Operating cash flow
$617.10M
Free cash flow
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Revenue
$6.25B
Net income
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Diluted EPS
2.32
Operating cash flow
$332.80M
Free cash flow
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Revenue
$5.75B
Net income
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Diluted EPS
1.14
Operating cash flow
$-767.60M
Free cash flow
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Sources
Revenue
$6.81B
Net income
$241.20M
Diluted EPS
4.98
Operating cash flow
$927.30M
Free cash flow
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Sources
Revenue
$5.87B
Net income
$155.10M
Diluted EPS
3.20
Operating cash flow
$261.60M
Free cash flow
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Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $293.88 vs current price $324.40
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $425.30 (44.7% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $293.88 a share — about 9.4% away from today's price of $324.40, so the stock currently looks fairly priced.
Is it drowning in debt?
Watch
Net debt $2.8B. Interest coverage 10.9x.
Net debt
$2.76B
Interest coverage
10.93x
Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated's profit covers its interest bill about 10.9 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Watch
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
JLL
BASELINE
Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated
Total debt $3.22B Interest coverage 10.93x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $10.81B Interest coverage 25.70x +135% vs JLL Carries about 2.4x more debt cushion than JLL.
Total debt $3.31B Interest coverage 4.87x -55% vs JLL Carries about 2.2x less debt cushion than JLL.
Total debt $3.03B Interest coverage 2.12x -81% vs JLL Carries about 5.2x less debt cushion than JLL.
Total debt $2.27B Interest coverage 7.20x -34% vs JLL Carries about 1.5x less debt cushion than JLL.
What you should know
The case for and against JLL
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 5.0% last year.
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Returns 13.5% on equity, ahead of 60% of its peers.
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Free cash flow was positive in 3/10 years.
Risks
-
Insider ownership is only 0.9% (peer median: 1.6%).
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Operating margin compressed from 4.7% to 4.6% over 3 years.
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
15.55x
Forward P/E
11.39x
P/B
2.00x
P/S
0.54x
EV/EBITDA
10.57x
PEG ratio
0.72x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
51.2%
Operating margin
4.6%
Net margin
3.6%
ROE
13.5%
ROA
4.8%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.42x
Current ratio
1.13x
Quick ratio
0.88x
Total debt
$3.22B
Total cash
$458.20M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$27.43B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
7.8%
EPS TTM
20.86
EPS 5Y CAGR
7.3%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$1.36B
Free CF TTM
$978.50M
FCF margin
3.6%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
2019-11-14