{"id":275063,"date":"2025-10-03T17:04:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T17:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/275063\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T17:04:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T17:04:17","slug":"the-worlds-largest-brokerage-dallas-based-cbre-is-tapping-into-resilient-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/275063\/","title":{"rendered":"The world\u2019s largest brokerage, Dallas-based CBRE, is tapping into \u2018resilient businesses\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nestled in its Uptown home<\/a>, commercial real estate brokerage CBRE<\/a> is among the 500 most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, outpacing the likes of Ford, Kroger and Hershey.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s come a long way from the doldrums of the Great Recession, when it ended 2008 with a $1.13 billion market cap, its lowest valuation since it went public four years earlier.<\/p>\n

At the time, the lion\u2019s share of its revenue stemmed from transactional businesses, which included property sales, leasing, mortgage origination and development fees.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

D-FW Real Estate News<\/p>\n

Get the latest real estate news you need to know.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

The company has since diversified its holdings, tapping the many verticals of the real estate industry to shield itself from economic downturns. <\/p>\n

CBRE calls these ventures \u201cresilient businesses,\u201d which include facilities management, project management, loan servicing, valuations, property management and recurring investment management fees. <\/p>\n

Ideally, these ventures would be agnostic to the vagaries of economic ups and downs, rooted in services that are always in need. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about resilience today, what we mean is one of two things: either cyclically, it performs independent of the traditional real estate cycle \u2026 or it\u2019s a business that has secular tailwinds,\u201d said Bob Sulentic, who assumed the mantle of CEO with CBRE in 2012. <\/p>\n

With Sulentic at the helm, the company has executed on its vision to diversify its revenue streams by tapping myriad commercial real estate verticals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to note that, when I came into the company, we already had some important revenue streams. We were already a big manager of buildings, and we already had a decent-sized project management business. With Trammell Crow, we had a decent-sized development business,\u201d Sulentic said. \u201cBut they were smaller relative to where they are today.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the third quarter, CBRE\u2019s market cap sat at $46.55 billion, a growth of more than 40 times since it hit those Great Recession lows.<\/p>\n

Building resilience<\/p>\n

The share of CBRE\u2019s earnings from resilient businesses has nearly doubled in just over a decade. In 2012, resilient businesses made up 32% of the company\u2019s earnings; today, they represent about 60% to 62%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you went back a little over a decade, [resilient revenue] was 32%. Now it\u2019s almost double,\u201d Sulentic said. \u201cIt\u2019s not because we de-emphasized brokerage or development, it\u2019s because we built the other parts of the business so substantially.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People work and chat in the RISE Caf\u00e9 seating area at CBRE\u2019s global headquarters in Dallas on Thursday, July 25, 2024.<\/p>\n

Juan Figueroa \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n

According to financial documents published by the company, sales and leasing revenue has ramped up from just below $3 billion in 2012 to over $6 billion in 2025.<\/p>\n

Those transactional services, however, have given way to resilient business ventures making up the greatest portion of its revenue. <\/p>\n

Since 2012, CBRE has bolstered its resilient business ventures with 118 acquisitions, deploying $5.3 billion in capital, fortifying its existing market footprint in various regions.<\/p>\n

It also made several strategic acquisitions, including Norland Managed Services, which became the foundation of its local facilities management operations. The acquisition of Global Workplace Solutions from Johnson Controls significantly ramped up CBRE\u2019s facilities management capabilities. <\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"CBRE<\/p>\n

It also acquired a majority stake in Turner & Townsend, a global project management firm that added infrastructure capabilities to CBRE\u2019s line of real estate verticals. <\/p>\n

It also more recently acquired Direct Line Global to strengthen its data center management services, J&J Worldwide to bolster federal government and Department of Defense facilities management and Industrious, a leading flexible workplace operator.<\/p>\n

Guiding vision<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s growth beyond transactional services was facilitated within what Sulentic refers to as a disciplined framework of strategy, operations and finance.<\/p>\n

Instead of making arbitrary decisions, he argued, the so-called SOF framework helps ensure the company\u2019s resilient business ventures will succeed. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re forever thinking about our strategy. Is it consistent with our right to win?\u201d Sulentic said.<\/p>\n

In business, \u201cright to win\u201d refers to a company\u2019s ability to beat rivals within its sector because of its strategic positioning or other competitive advantages it may have.<\/p>\n

Sulentic outlined four dimensions of diversification, including asset types, service types, client types and geography.<\/p>\n

Sulentic reasoned that CBRE\u2019s right to win across these dimensions is because of its position as an industry leader in many of its markets. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have this strategy of pushing into areas of secular benefit, you\u2019re pushing into areas where you already exist, you can build on something, a platform that\u2019s already there,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

For example, he said the company pursued asset classes such as infrastructure and industrial warehouses because they were defined by secular tailwinds. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday, obviously, data centers have secular tailwinds,\u201d Sulentic said.<\/p>\n

Operationally, he said CBRE constantly pushes to improve its talent pool along with its operational efficiency when it comes to both costs and day-to-day business operations.<\/p>\n

The company deliberately broadened its leadership pool to include talent from across industries and geographies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are the odds that all of our best talent was just here in the United States? What are the odds that all of the best talent to help lead this business came right from inside?\u201d Sulentic said. \u201cOur CFO came from Verizon. Our CEO of advisory started as a broker in India. Our global head of research started in Taiwan. Our head of leasing started in India. Our head of people started in the U.K.\u201d <\/p>\n

He argued that the company\u2019s broad leadership pool brings in leaders with diverse problem-solving approaches, making the company more adaptable and innovative.<\/p>\n

Finally, he said CBRE leverages its financial resources to maintain a strong balance sheet and use that balance sheet to advance its strategies.<\/p>\n

That resulted in the company enjoying better investor confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve declared what we were going to do, and we did it. We\u2019ve been consistent in talking to the market about what our strategy is and what we\u2019re trying to get done with this company, and we\u2019ve delivered,\u201d Sulentic said. \u201cWhen you deliver on that, people are confident that, when we go out and give our earnings report next quarter and say where we\u2019re headed, they\u2019re going to be confident that we\u2019re going to do that, because that track record has been there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sulentic acknowledged that running a company of CBRE\u2019s size requires constant vigilance. <\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Sulentic said CBRE\u2019s strategy is designed to guide the company through leadership changes as well as market cycles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big, broad business,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to forever be on top of keeping it really good. You can\u2019t be complacent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nestled in its Uptown home, commercial real estate brokerage CBRE is among the 500 most valuable publicly traded…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":275064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,347,12611,1596,7712,4329,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-275063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-commercial-real-estate","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-dallas-fortworth","13":"tag-real-estate","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115311323679611141","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}