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Colliers International Group Inc
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Welcome to the second quarter year-end investors conference call. Today's call is being recorded.Legal counsel requires us to advise that the discussion scheduled to take place today may contain forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results may be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements contemplated in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the company's annual information form as filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and in the company's annual report on form 40-F as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. Today is Tuesday, July 31, 2018. And at this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jay Hennick. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our second quarter conference call. As mentioned, I'm Jay Hennick, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and with me is John Friedrichsen, Chief Financial Officer. This morning's conference call is being webcast and is available in the Investor Relations section of our website. A presentation slide deck is also available to accompany today's call.Earlier today, Colliers reported strong financial results for the second quarter, a combination of solid internal growth and acquisitions. Revenues were up 14%, adjusted EBITDA up 15% and adjusted earnings per share increased 23% over the prior year. Year-to-date, revenues were up 16%, adjusted EBITDA up 15% and adjusted earnings per share also up 23% over the comparable period.During the quarter, we completed 3 acquisitions, all in North America. We added company-owned operations in Pittsburgh and Winnipeg, and we acquired the dominant market player in commercial real estate in the Intermountain Region of Utah and then we rebranded it as Colliers. This strategy of adding significant market players, particularly in new geographic regions where we can partner with the leadership teams has been a tremendous growth opportunity for Colliers. Not only does it help us expand and diversify our growing platform, it brings a host of high-quality professionals with important client relationships to our global business.Just after the quarter-end, we closed on our strategic investment in Harrison Street Real Estate, one of the largest investment management firms dedicated to education, health care and storage. I'll have more to say about Harrison Street and our new investment management platform once John has completed his financial review.After the quarter-end, we also added one of Denmark's leading capital market specialists and merged it with our existing full service operations, establishing Colliers International as the undisputed leader in commercial real estate in Denmark. Fortifying and expanding our operations by integrating top-tier leaders in different specialties has been another growth strategy that has paid off handsomely for our company.Earlier this year, we did the same thing in Spain, doubling the size of our operations there by merging with a significant local market player and bringing together a group of professionals that is second to none.Just after quarter-end, we also announced that we had streamlined our business in Finland. We sold a residential property management business that we acquired as part of a larger business earlier this year. While we liked the business and obviously understood it completely, we chose to focus on our core of providing property management and brokerage services to owners and occupiers of commercial real estate.So in addition to generating healthy internal growth for the first half of the year, we also added about $225 million in annualized revenues through acquisition, and we still have the balance of the year left to go.Based on our results to date and our business pipelines and the acquisitions we've already completed, we're optimistic that 2018 will be another record year for Colliers.Now let me turn things over to John for his financial highlights. I'll then return to provide an overview of our new Investment Management platform, and then we'll open things up for questions. John?
Thank you, Jay. As announced earlier today and highlighted by Jay in his opening remarks, Colliers International Group reported strong consolidated financial results for our second quarter of 2018, with solid contributions from our operations across our global platform. My comments will be tailored to address our Q2 regional results, capital deployment as well as our financial capacity and outlook for 2018, and we'll follow the flow of the slides posted on our website that accompany this call.Please note that my comments may reference non-GAAP measures such as adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS, both of which are outlined in our press release issued today as well as the accompanying slide deck and are composed primarily of noncash charges that we view as largely unrelated to our operating results for the quarter. References to revenue growth, including internal growth, are calculated based on local currency. Finally, both our second quarter 2018 and comparative second quarter 2017 results reflect the adoption of the new revenue recognition standards under U.S. GAAP.Our second quarter revenues of $667 million were up 11% over the prior year and comprised of $186 million in Sales Brokerage, up 5%, while Lease Brokerage generated revenues of $222 million, up 21%, exhibiting strong year-over-year growth across all regions.Revenues from Outsourcing & Advisory services totaled $260 million, up 8%, led by solid growth in property management and in our appraisal and consulting services. The more recurring revenues generated by our Outsourcing & Advisory services segment represented 39% of our overall revenues in the quarter comparable to Q2 of last year.Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $69.4 million compared to $60.3 million, with our margin at 10.4% versus 10.3% in the prior year quarter. Both revenues and adjusted EBITDA remained well diversified in Q2, with a little change compared to Q2 of 2017 as both internal growth and acquisitions contributed favorably to a strong, balanced global platform.Quarterly revenues in the Americas totaled $389 million, up 11%, with 7% internal growth and the balance from acquisitions. Lease Brokerage revenue growth of 22% led the way and were driven by strong internal growth, particularly in the U.S. West region and in Canada. Meanwhile, Sales Brokerage revenues were up a more modest 3% in the quarter. Outsourcing & Advisory revenues were up 6%, led by robust growth across all Outsourcing & Advisory service lines in our Canadian operations.Adjusted EBITDA came in at $36.2 million versus $32.9 million last year, the 9.3% margin down 20 basis points compared to last year.Turning to EMEA. Revenues of $150 million in the quarter increased 15% with 1% internal growth, which was impacted by timing of transactions and reduced activity in our workplace solutions services in France. Sales Brokerage revenues were up 34% over last year, led by strong internal growth in Germany, Netherlands and France. Lease Brokerage revenues were up 18%, with strong internal growth led by our operations in the U.K, Denmark, Poland and Russia. Meanwhile, revenues from Outsourcing & Advisory services increased 5%. Contributions from acquisition-related growth, offset by a decline in our workplace solutions services revenues in France [ as ] we reorient our operations to more sizable and profitable project activities going forward. Adjusted EBITDA for the region was $21.5 million compared to $17.5 million last year and a 14.3% margin, down slightly compared to last year.And finally, in our Asia-Pacific region, revenues came in at $129 million, up 6% with 2% internal growth and the balance from acquisitions. Lease Brokerage revenues were up 17%, led by strong internal growth in China, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, while Sales Brokerage revenues contracted 10%, with lower activity in Australia and Hong Kong, some of which is timing related and opposite of strong Q2 of last year. Revenues generated by our Outsourcing & Advisory services were up 15%, led by strong growth in consulting and appraisal revenues in Australia, China and Hong Kong as well as strong gains in property management in Singapore and India and a robust increase in project management revenues in Australia and China, with acquisitions contributing to the latter. Adjusted EBITDA was $15.4 million, up from $12.7 million last year, with our margin up 120 basis points at 11.9% versus 10.7% as we continue to build additional scale in Asia.Moving to our capital deployment and balance sheet. In our second quarter of 2018, capital expenditures totaled $7.8 million, down from $13.8 million last year, normalizing from an elevated spend in Q2 of last year. We do expect a higher level of spend in the back half of the year, such that for the full year 2018, we expect to invest about $40 million in total CapEx across our operations.Turning to acquisitions. We invested $19 million in acquisition activities during the quarter compared to $28 million in Q2 of last year. Of course, the big news on the investment front was the Harrison Street transaction, which we announced in Q2 but closed in early Q3, along with another acquisition in Denmark, creating a market-leading business for Colliers in this important Nordic market.As we previously announced in Q2, we fortified our debt capital structure by increasing our revolving credit facility to $1 billion, more favorable pricing and extending its term to April of 2023. After completing this in mid-April, we augmented our revolving credit facility with a EUR 210 million issue of 10-year senior notes at a very attractive long-term fixed interest rate of 2.23%, providing a natural foreign exchange hedge on our euro-denominated cash flows.Our net debt position stood at $316 million at the end of the quarter compared to $304 million at the end of Q2 of last year, with our leverage ratio expressed as net debt to adjusted EBITDA at 1.2x compared to 1.3x at the end of the prior year quarter. Pro forma for the Harrison Street and Denmark acquisitions completed after quarter-end, our financial leverage stood at 2.4x, still well within our lender covenants of 3.5x.In terms of our financial capacity, with cash on hand and committed availability under our revolver, we had $820 million of liquidity at quarter-end and adjusted for the investment in Harrison Street completed after quarter-end, $370 million of liquidity, a level sufficient to fund operations and other capital investments including acquisitions under our growth strategy.Looking across our global operations, our pipelines in most markets continue to reflect solid commercial real estate activity comparing favorably to levels at this time last year. With generally stable economic conditions and modest growth accompanied by low interest rates based on historical parameters and a supportive lending environment, the key elements remain in place to support steady activity in sales, leasing and other commercial real estate services for the balance of 2018. As a result, our 2018 outlook for Colliers' existing business, excluding our new Investment Management platform, has been adjusted for acquisitions completed to date but otherwise remains largely unchanged, including our expectations for low to mid-single-digit percentage internal growth in local currency revenues, plus mid-single-digit percentage growth in local currency revenues from acquisitions and an adjusted EBITDA margin improvement of 30 to 40 basis points compared to 2017.Separately, for the balance of 2018, we expect Harrison Street to generate revenues in the $50 million to $55 million range; adjusted EBITDA margins of 35% to 40%; noncontrolling interest share of earnings of 25%; and significant intangible asset amortization, which will be expensed under U.S. GAAP. On a consolidated basis, we estimate a tax rate in the 30% to 32% range and a mid-teen to 20% growth and full year adjusted EPS compared to 2017, inclusive of the impact from our investment in Harrison Street.That concludes my prepared remarks, and I would now like to turn our call back over to Jay. Jay?
Thank you, John. As mentioned, we completed -- now completed our transformational investment in Harrison Street, and we did that at the beginning of this quarter. The acquisition establishes Colliers as one of the top players in global real estate investment management, provides us with an important new platform for growth and facilitates the integration of our existing investment management operations in Europe. Harrison Street is a pioneer in demographic-based investing, focused exclusively in education, health care and storage. These are massive investable markets that won't change with the changes in the economy.Perhaps most importantly though, Harrison Street has a proven track record of performance and best-in-class returns over a long period of time. Today, they manage about $15.6 billion in assets under management, and it does that for 245 of the world's most respected investors. Colliers acquired 75% of Harrison Street, with the balance of the equity retained by management. Our entrepreneurial culture and performance-driven business model align perfectly with the team at Harrison Street, who will continue to operate the business as our partners.Beginning with the third quarter, we will update our reporting to separately disclose our new Investment Management platform. It will initially comprise the results of Harrison Street as well as our existing European investment management business. Together, the segment will have annual recurring revenues of between $115 million and $130 million, EBITDA margins of between 35% and 40% and a total of more than $20 billion of assets under management. During the first full year, we expect this division to contribute about 15% of our overall EBITDA.Industry dynamics show strong potential for the Investment Management sector, with almost $2 trillion invested in real estate in 2017 and more than 80% of investors polled expecting to maintain or increase their investment allocations during 2018 and beyond. The opportunity to leverage our combined track records, enterprising cultures and focus on best-in-class results will accelerate our growth both internally and through acquisition. And by capitalizing on Colliers' global brand, platform of operations in 69 countries, significant financial resources and deep client relationships, among many others, we expect to accelerate our success even further. The addition of Harrison Street fits perfectly with our strategy of building Colliers into the best advisory business in our industry, with a focus on enterprising, differentiated professional services delivered to clients wherever they choose to do business. While size and scale is always important, and we surely have that, our strategic priority continues to be creating a professional services leader that attracts the best clients and the very best real estate professionals to Colliers without diluting execution by introducing a variety of non-core services.With that, I'd like to open things up for questions. Operator, please open things up, if you would.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Frederic Bastien of Raymond James.
Guys, you mentioned some particularly strong momentum in leasing brokerage across many of your regions but a bit more modest growth on the sales side. Are you expecting a continuing of these trends until the second half?
I think our pipelines reflect strong activity and -- certainly on the leasing side as well as sales. And I would say that there were some timing-related issues as there often are related to sales transactions, which impacted Q2, but we expect to realize those in Q3 and Q4. But across-the-board, I would say, in both areas, we see strong activity in pipelines.
Okay. You also mentioned the West Coast of the U.S. seeing very strong momentum on the leasing side there. Is this a result of some of the acquisition transactions you made and those investments finally bearing fruit or is it -- is there more to that?
I wouldn't say there's a whole lot more to it other than what you said. And as you'll recall a year ago, we did acquire the Northern California and Nevada Colliers affiliate. We have integrated that into our operation, and it's created a much more robust business for us in the U.S. West Coast. So that's important. As well, the U.S. West is certainly a very robust economy, including the tech sector and other businesses that continue to grow. So I think by being situated there, we're seeing some of that, and it's impacted favorably our results in the U.S.
Okay. Great. Last one from me. Just wondering if you have any views on the Cushman & Wakefield business and the IPO it's pursuing?
We wish them tremendous luck and hope that their offering is very successful, Fred.
Your next question comes from the line of Stephen MacLeod of BMO Capital Markets.
Just on the EMEA region, I just wanted to ask about the margin here. I would have expected maybe margins to be a bit stronger with lower Outsourcing & Advisory revenues. So I'm just curious what you're seeing on the margin side there. And then I guess, in terms of activity, what you're seeing by major region in Europe.
Well, you're right. The margin has been impacted by ongoing investments in people in that business. As we have spoken before, it's one of our key areas for developing our business across Europe in major markets in particular, and we've continued to make those investments so -- though the revenue related to those investments lags the investment timing. So we expect that later in the year and certainly into 2019, those investments in people to become more productive and generate returns. So that's impacted our results there. I did mention our workplace solutions business in France, which we are reorganizing and rearranging towards larger and more profitable contracts. So we're suffering a little bit from the impact of that, which absolutely is the best thing to do for the long-term health of that business. And we're confident we're going to be able to achieve our objective later in the year. But in the Q2 and possibly in Q3, it's negatively impacted the overall margin.
Right. And what are some of the initiatives you're undertaking in the workplace solutions business in France? Can you just elaborate on what's actually happening there?
It's really, really trying to better focus again on larger projects, projects that generally are more profitable as opposed to many, many projects, which tend to be somewhat inefficient. And we're kind of reevaluating the way we deliver our services in that market, including the headcount, the personnel that we have in place. A lot of it is very good, but there needs to be some fine-tuning done, and that's what we're doing now.
Right. Okay. And then just turning to Harrison, which obviously is a very transformative acquisition for you. Can you just talk a little bit about -- you gave some color around the EBITDA margin for 2018 of roughly 35% to 40% as well as revenue run rate. Can you just talk a little bit about how you expect that to evolve when we get into 2019 and beyond? What are your expectations for ongoing AUM growth? And how do you expect the EBITDA margin to evolve over the next couple of years?
Well, look, we have bought an exceptionally well-run business, with a team that has a demonstrated track record of success in investing in these important areas, defensive categories of real estate, really. And we expect them to continue to flourish, certainly within Colliers and leverage both what they bring to the table in terms of their relationships, track record and what Colliers offers. So we expect the business to grow significantly. I don't really want to put a fine point on what that growth looks like. But needless to say, their success and ongoing fundraising and deployment and investment is continuing, and we expect that to be very significant going forward.
So let me add a couple of things to that. So first of all, they have a commanding position in North America, principally in the U.S., not much in Canada. And they have a nice smaller business in the U.K. and the rest of Europe. But the appetite for what Harrison Street does in its chosen areas of focus is massive. And so they're seeing lots of traction, both on the deal opportunity side as well as the fundraising side in Europe, which is -- which we always saw as a big opportunity for us. And we are currently investigating integrating our European operations in with Harrison Street because obviously, although they have a much -- our existing operations have a much wider net in terms of the various different categories, they have deep relationships with those that wish to allocate capital, particularly in Harrison Street's areas of focus. So you're going to have to give us a little bit of time to integrate this thing well. The teams are hard at work and trying to capitalize on some early opportunities we saw in bringing the 2 organizations together. But suffice it to say, we're excited about the quality of the business, the ability for it to scale. It was one of the top -- I forget the exact number but in the top 20 fundraisers last year globally. So they've got lots of great support from their investor universe. And what they have to do is they have to find high-quality transactions that the investors are looking for. So I think we need a little bit more time to integrate this thing and to get our mitts around the puts and takes, but early returns are very positive.
Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Sheldon of William Blair.
First on Harrison Street, I know you're keeping it somewhat separate operationally. But just curious how trends there have been since the acquisition announcement in terms of retaining both key talent and AUM. And then secondarily, any thoughts on whether you want to continue expanding more into the IM business and whether that will be an area of increased investment for you?
So since we announced the transaction, the AUM has gone up almost $1 billion. So I think that's positive -- that's been a positive. Investors have been very positively predisposed. We are very excited about the existing management team, who, under our partnership philosophy, among other things, will have a much deeper vested interest in the business and the long-term success of the business than they did as a private company. So we're excited about that. The phones have been ringing at Harrison Street from others in the industry that would like to come over and join what we're building there. So I believe we've got a -- we've got the right mix of both history and forward momentum to make a difference long term. In terms of acquisitions, we truly see this as the next growth engine for Colliers. Not only does Harrison Street itself have very interesting opportunities to grow and scale its business that it wasn't able to do as a private company. We also see other very differentiated potential opportunities for us and the underlying focused and differentiated because that has been in many ways the key to Harrison Street's success. But we're going to follow a one step at a time approach as we always do. We're going to dedicate our efforts in the early months or -- to integrating this thing well and to get the flow between the Harrison Street leadership team and our leadership team working well and the leverage points between Colliers globally and Harrison Street working well. So it's not easy, but it's somewhat easy to make an acquisition, it's a hell of a lot harder to integrate it well, and it does take a lot of time and effort.
Got it. Very helpful. And I believe one of the potential benefits of Harrison Street is the opportunity to build better relationships and maybe attracts more brokers within the education, health care and storage sector here in North America. I realize it's still very early here with the closing earlier this month, but have you seen any early indications that maybe support the view that could happen over time?
Yes. I mean, interesting happenstance is that we had 2 very strong practice groups: one in seniors housing and one in student housing. So both of those teams have engaged already with Harrison Street. There's been others in the industry that have had a history with Harrison Street in sourcing acquisitions or selling assets that have approached us to join these practice groups. But again, it'll take time to execute on those things.
Got it. And then, I guess, a couple of modeling questions. What metrics are you planning to provide for the IM segment? And specifically, will you give quarterly kind of AUM detail? And then also any detail on the revenue and adjusted EBITDA contribution from the European IM business, just so we know how much to essentially reclassify out of the EMEA segment?
Yes. I mean, we're still determining what metrics we're going to be providing. But certainly, AUM would be an important metric to go along with the usual financial revenue profitability metrics. So that absolutely will be out there. And we're going to select those metrics that are meaningful and we think are going to provide investors with good information to track the ongoing progress of the business. So that's the -- I guess, the main focus for the time being.
And then any -- for the European IM business?
It's relatively small at this point. So we will provide all of the comparatives and restate the comparatives to ensure that you can track comparability back on a stand-alone basis for the last -- certainly the last year, whether or not we go back in terms of more quarters. But the bottom line is that it's a very, very small part of the business today and not material. But we'll provide that information.
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Smith of RBC Capital Markets.
So on the -- and again, on Harrison Street, so the -- you've added $1 billion of AUM since you announced the deal. Is it fair to assume that was in the open-ended funds?
No. It's not fair to assume that. It's probably -- and I don't know the exact amount, but it's generally 50-50.
50-50?
Yes. I would assume 50-50 for your purposes.
Okay. And Jay, you mentioned that one of the opportunities -- and again, I realize it's early stages of expanding that business is through focused, I guess, real estate. So is that -- does that mean like niche real estate, kind of like the medical office, that kind of thing, student housing would be that type of thing as opposed to, let's say, office retail, industrial, that kind of thing?
Well, I don't want to foreclose the others because there's a lot of leverage possibilities with those others, but medical office, student housing, seniors housing, affordable housing, even [ multires ] are massive, massive investable categories. And so the reason I raised it is that we don't want to be all things to all people. We want to be very focused in specific areas where not only can we buy assets well, but we can also gain expertise in managing those assets that can bring enhanced yield to our clients, whether it's through sustainability, whether it's through leveraging their combined buying power in a particular area. And as you know, we have experience in doing that in residential property management among other things. So we're very focused on how do we enhance the existing -- what we hope is a good yield on, say, student housing, with additional leverage points that we bring because of our scale, size or expertise.
Okay. And for some of those, let's say, newer areas that you may go into in the future, would you envision potentially doing tuck-under acquisitions in that platform?
Yes. For sure. I mean, that's for sure an avenue of growth. And for us, we can scale that a lot faster using the strength of Harrison Street and our European business for that matter.
Okay. And are you planning on co-branding Harrison Street?
It's been discussed. I think we're going to get through fiscal '18 and visit it early in '19. There's a lots -- lot of put and takes around that. But one of the benefits of utilizing Colliers is it is an institutionally known brand all around the world. And it may help by co-branding it. And again, I'm probably going on too long about this, but it may help modestly in the U.S., but it will help major league in Europe, in Asia, in Australia, New Zealand because the brand is so powerful there. So we'll have to balance all of those things.
Sure. That make sense. And just on your leverage. So pro forma, you're at 2.4x debt to EBITDA. Can you remind us where do you think you'll end up at the end -- let's say, by the end of 2019?
Yes. You mean 2019?
Yes. I think last quarter -- last call, you mentioned you planned -- you had a plan for the next year or so to get that leverage down.
Yes. I mean, look, it comes down to -- a lot of it comes down to the acquisition pipeline. And with a modest tuck-under strategy, which would not include anything significant by the end of 2019, we would expect to be debt deleverage down about 1x at the end of the year. So through -- that would include modest amount of tuck-under acquisition activity consistent with what we've done in the past and then ongoing cash flow generation from the business, we would delever down about 1x.
Okay. So down to about 1.4x?
Yes. And that's for end of 2019 you asked, right?
Yes. Okay. And just lastly on Asia-Pacific, so you had a nice bump in margins from -- to 11.9% from 10.7%, even though your Sales Brokerage revenue went down. I know you've made a bunch of investments there in prior years. I'm wondering if you could just give us some color on that margin.
Yes. Look, I mean, the -- we've been going through some build in Asia, which you're probably aware of. We talked about it in the past, changed out our executive team, and that has brought in a number of new people over the last several years. We have the Japan expansion as well. So all of these things are coming together now, and we're getting some additional scale in Asia, better productivity. And as a result, we're seeing some margin improvement. That also included in Asia-Pacific region an uptick in our margin, New Zealand as well, which had underperformed in the prior quarter. So we benefited a little bit from that as well.
Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Germain of JMP Securities.
Jay, I know you guys streamlined some of your operations in Finland. And I'm curious, are there any other regions where you have a similar opportunity to do that?
There's a little bit of work going on in France as John talked about. But Finland was, for us, obvious. And given our knowledge of residential property management, it really did hurt for us to sell a great business that generated great profitability. We did it at a very good price for us and reduced our overall cost of the Finland acquisition. But it really helped refine our focus into the area that we operate, and that was the principal reason. But across-the-board, we have been very disciplined around what we're into and what we're not into. As you know and as we've discussed historically with you in the past, we believe we want to be a high-quality professional services firm that focuses on high-end advisory work and less on other services that may be recurring but are really different businesses and are sold differently, et cetera. So I guess in a long way, the answer to your question is, other than Finland and perhaps a bit in France, the answer is no.
Great. And then when you factor in outsourcing at 15% of EBITDA, I think you're around 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 in terms of your 3 major segments today. Is that kind of a -- it seems like you obviously want to make some maybe future investments in investment management, but are you somewhat comfortable with that kind of revised business mix going forward for the next couple of years?
We like our business mix. But with investment management, it's actually -- it's an interesting one because you're talking about revenue breakdown. But if you look at the EBITDA breakdown, which is where the recurring revenue number really, really grows, you're talking about a much larger percentage of our business now being recurring in nature, given the recurability of -- and the size of the EBITDA of the investment management platform.
Your next question comes from the line of Marc Riddick of Sidoti.
So you covered a lot of things around Harrison Street. I really appreciate the color and information on that. I wanted to shift over a little bit to just sort of get maybe a latest update or thoughts on some of business activity in the major markets, if you're seeing anything that's kind of shifted or changed that's kind of caught your eye? And also some thoughts around the progress of growth in second-tier markets as well.
Well, I might add 1 or 2 things. So I mean, it's becoming clearer, I think, to us that investment sales is slowing relative to, obviously, leasing. As you can see, leasing was up significantly across the board. There's a lot of people, institutions, corporations, REITs, et cetera, that are buying assets and holding them for a longer period than they have historically, which is bringing down the overall velocity of investment sales. And so it's nice to be able to have a full service platform, where you can provide a variety of different services to your clients. So I would say that, that would be the first thing. I'm seeing people holding real estate longer and less trading in better quality real estate than has been historically. John, I don't know if you want to...
I would just add, you're asking about secondary markets and that's -- it continues to be a focus of ours. And I think we're seeing ongoing improvements in activity in what people would characterize as secondary markets. And I think that's a natural outcome of the kind of economy that we're in. The ongoing kind of slower growth, but growth-oriented economy is, I think, bringing greater confidence to real estate investors. Obviously, some markets probably have become overpriced naturally based on a strong economic backdrop. Investors and other occupiers are looking at secondary markets as opportunities for additional investments. So we're seeing that activity and not surprising. So we continue to focus on those markets. They're very important to us. Obviously, the major markets are critical to our growth. But these important secondary markets, which themselves are in some cases being reinvented and growing, are important areas for our business.
Yes. I just want to jump on what John said. One of the things that we have done successfully because it's been a key part of our strategy is to dominate in secondary markets. And I haven't done the math recently. But with Salt Lake City and Winnipeg and Denmark and Finland and now Spain, markets that some would consider to be by and large secondary markets, and we already dominate in Detroit, in Kansas City, and the list goes on. Colliers has methodically over the past number of years established themselves as market leaders in every one of these secondary markets, I think at the expense of others who are focusing on other things. And so that has always been a key component of our strategy. And as investors are looking for real estate assets in secondary markets, when Colliers has a 60% market share in Salt Lake City or a 55% market share in Kansas City or whatever market share in Denmark, we really have the blocks covered. And if you want to do business in those markets, Colliers is the place to be.
Excellent. One other follow-up. I wanted to go back to the comment you made about the polled investors, that about 80% of them looking to, I guess, maintain or grow spending for the remainder of the year and beyond. I wanted to get a sense of -- is it fair to then characterize that as representing an increase as a -- of real estate as a percentage of their assets that you're hearing from? And whether that represents an opportunity for greater exposure for those clients.
Yes. There's no question allocations are going up in real estate in all sectors, whether it's direct investing or directing -- or investing indirectly through firms like Harrison Street.
Your next question comes from the line of Stephen MacLeod of BMO Capital Markets.
I just had a quick follow-up question. John, when you were talking about the 2018 existing business outlook, I just wanted to confirm, do you expect margins to be up 20 to 30 basis points, or I thought I heard 30 to 40 basis points.
It's 20 to 30.
Okay.
Sorry, if I said 30 to 40. It's 20 to 30 on the existing business.
Okay.
Yes. I mean, obviously, the Harrison Street acquisition will be incremental overall. But just staying with existing business, 20 to 30 in terms of increase in EBITDA margin.
Right. Okay. And then just when you think about Harrison versus the European business, is it safe to assume that the European business is roughly $10 million of incremental revenue at the midpoint?
I think that's probably okay.
We'll give you the exact numbers next quarter.
Yes.
A little higher maybe.
There are no further questions in the queue. I'll turn the call back over to the presenters.
Okay. Thank you very much, everyone, for joining us. Exciting times, lots going on, and we look forward to another strong quarter in Q3. So thanks for joining us. Have a good next quarter.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the quarterly investor's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and have a nice day.