2022 STARTED STRONG, BUT INDUSTRY ACTIVITY SLOWED IN THE SECOND HALF
2022 was a transitional year for Newmark and the broader commercial real estate industry. Despite the emergence of industry-wide headwinds, we benefited from investments Newmark made prior to the onset of the global pandemic, and the steps we took in 2021 to strengthen the Company’s financial position.
WHY WE EXPECT STRONG CAPITAL MARKETS GROWTH TO RESUME
We are incredibly optimistic about the prospects for Newmark in this new era.2 The shifting criteria for incumbent lenders and equity providers is creating a challenging environment for borrowers. Our sophisticated market professionals are required to solve the complex problems facing the commercial real estate market. We are the platform of choice for the best and brightest professionals who can develop and execute solutions for our clients, who seek increasingly innovative solutions. This is why we are winning an ever larger percentage of the most important assignments in the real estate services industry.
For example, our exclusive FDIC mandate to sell Signature’s $60 billion loan portfolio3 exemplifies our strength in managing large and complex transactions. We believe this portfolio represents the largest real estate loan sale in U.S. history and demonstrates the capacity and depth of Newmark. Loan advisory services are becoming increasingly significant for us. We expect Newmark to benefit as loan sales and advisory services largely offset and replace investment sales in the near term and lead to additional service line opportunities.
In this document you will find examples of the many creative ways we have helped our clients achieve their goals in 2022 and thus far in 2023 across several of our businesses.
WALL OF MATURITIES AND OUR LEADING PROFESSIONALS WILL DRIVE OUTSIZED GROWTH
We expect our world-class debt platform to drive outsized growth over the intermediate term, given the record $1.9 trillion of commercial and multifamily debt maturities due between 2023 and 2025.4
With the sharp increase in interest and capitalization rates, and the pullback in lending by banks and other traditional lenders, we anticipate a large and growing percentage of investors and owners will need to find alternative capital sources. Analysts estimate that real estate-focused private credit funds will triple their share of U.S. commercial real estate originations to 30% between 2022 and 2027.5 We expect debt maturities to be resolved through refinancings, which will drive our mortgage brokerage and origination businesses, and through our more sophisticated restructuring and recapitalization advisory services. Newmark has already arranged multiple equity joint ventures and recapitalizations for our clients thus far in 2023, with many other mandates in the pipeline. We expect a growing number of owners and investors to turn to our best-in-class professionals for creative financing solutions.
We anticipate assisting the growing number of private credit funds and other institutional investors in acquiring real estate loans being sold by banks and other lenders. U.S. real estate loan sales volumes were up by over 400% for the first four months of 2023 compared with the 2015 to 2019 average,6 and we anticipate a significant percentage of the over $3 trillion of outstanding non-GSE commercial mortgages will become distressed. We therefore expect banks and other lenders to sell an ever increasing portion of their loans over the next few years. As a clear leader in loan sales, Newmark expects to generate dramatic growth from this counter-cyclical business.
As interest rates stabilize, we expect industry-wide investment sales and originations to begin to rebound toward the end of this year, and we anticipate a robust back half of 2024. The MBA recently forecast that the overall volume of U.S. commercial and multifamily lending will increase by 70% in 2024 and by another 16% in 2025, when it will reach nearly $1 trillion.7 Given our strong and growing capabilities in debt finance, we expect to continue outperforming the market over time.
Historically, our capital markets businesses have had a multiplier effect, which drives outsized growth across Newmark’s other service lines, including property management, agency leasing, valuation, and loan servicing. The resurgence of our higher margin capital markets business, combined with our strong leasing, recurring revenue businesses, and the investments we have made will contribute to significant revenue and earnings growth.8
CONTINUING TO INVEST IN GROWTH
The current market dislocation, coupled with our strong financial position, has allowed us to hire top talent and acquire companies at attractive valuations. In March of 2023, the Company continued its global expansion by acquiring U.K.-based full-service real estate advisory firm Gerald Eve, bringing to Newmark a top three U.K. industrial capital markets platform and a strong set of management services businesses.9 We now generate nearly $200 million in annualized revenues in the U.K. We have continued to expand in non-U.S. geographies through acquisitions, hiring, and organic growth. As a result, our international revenues have grown from less than 1% of total revenues in 2017 to our current annualized run rate of approximately 10%.
With respect to our Americas growth: In the first half of 2023, we added industry-leading capital markets producers in New York, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Diego, focused on industrial, multifamily, office, life science, and structured finance, as well as top client-facing professionals in leasing and Valuation & Advisory. We also acquired the remainder of Spring11, increasing the size of our highly profitable servicing portfolio from $71 billion at the end of 2022 to $169 billion by June 30, 2023.
We expect these recent investments to add approximately $300 million of annualized revenues and result in Newmark exceeding our record full year 2021 revenues and Adjusted EBITDA once markets normalize.10
THE LARGE MAJORITY OF OUR REVENUES ARE FROM RECURRING OR CONSISTENT BUSINESSES
We generate over two-thirds of our revenues from our growing suite of recurring businesses11 and leasing. Management services, servicing fees and other grew from 24% of total revenues in 2017 to 34% in 2022. We expect Newmark to continue to generate outsized growth from these businesses.
The Company expects to continue outperforming the market in leasing, due to investments we have made in industrial and retail brokerage. Industrial vacancies remain near historic lows, while rents continue to increase, led by secular trends driving e-commerce and data center growth, as well as the onshoring of U.S. technology manufacturing. Retail leasing activity has been aided by continued growth in consumer spending. Newmark increased its combined leasing volumes from industrial and retail meaningfully versus pre-pandemic levels in both 2022 and the first half of 2023. Taken together, they now represent almost 50% of our overall leasing volumes.12
Our growing strength in these property types augments our already strong office leasing business. While newer, LEED-certified Class A office properties continue to command higher rents and occupancy rates, we are starting to see increased overall office demand13 in certain markets. Our leasing, management services, and capital markets professionals are also actively collaborating with clients to repurpose underutilized properties, including conversion into multifamily, life science, industrial, and other uses.
REPLICATING OUR DECADE-PLUS HISTORY OF GROWTH AND OUTPERFORMANCE
Newmark increased its total revenues by over 1,000%, or a CAGR of 25%, between 2011 and 2022. This improvement was greater than that of any of our publicly traded commercial real estate services peers over this timeframe.14 We achieved this outperformance largely because we hired and retained over 2,000 of the industry’s most talented professionals and acquired more than 55 companies over this period. These companies and individuals were attracted to Newmark’s strong culture of innovation, collaboration, and broad-based employee ownership.15
We empower our professionals through technology, data analytics, and infrastructure. As a result of our successful record of growth and the Company’s focus on higher revenue and margin businesses, our professionals are among the most productive in the industry. Newmark’s average revenue and Adjusted EBITDA per employee in 2022 were over 80% higher than the average for our U.S.-listed full-service publicly traded commercial real estate services peers.16
CONCLUSION
We have assembled an incredible group of individuals here at Newmark, who each contribute their own unique combination of experience, determination, and drive for success. Talent attracts talent, and success lures success, so leading professionals across the industry are continually drawn to Newmark.
I am proud of what we have accomplished. On behalf of the entire leadership team here at Newmark, I thank our employees, partners, clients, and stockholders for their continued support and shared optimism for the Company’s prospects for years to come.
Barry M. Gosin
Chief Executive Officer
NEWMARK
Headcount and office locations include independently owned business partners. Excluding business partners, we had over 7,000 employees in approximately 140 offices as of June 30, 2023. Our revenues and volumes are for Newmark company-owned offices only, for the trailing twelve month ending December 2022. Volume figure is the notional value of all leasing, investment sales, mortgage brokerage, and GSE/FHA origination transacted by the Company as well as the estimated value of all properties appraised by our Valuation & Advisory business for the trailing two years.
In addition, the Endnotes to the above letter can be found on page 13 of the Annual Report, available here.
DISCUSSION OF FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS ABOUT NEWMARK
Statements regarding Newmark that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These include statements about the Company's business, results, financial position, liquidity, and outlook, which may constitute forward-looking statements and are subject to the risk that the actual impact may differ, possibly materially, from what is currently expected. Except as required by law, Newmark undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For a discussion of additional risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward looking statements, see Newmark's Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including, but not limited to, the risk factors and Special Note on Forward-Looking Information set forth in these filings and any updates to such risk factors and Special Note on Forward-Looking Information contained in subsequent reports on Form 10-K, Form 10-Q or Form 8-K.