The UK is set to help Savills deliver an improved set of results for 2024, with the expectation that the business will see a further rebound this year.
In a trading update for the year to 31 December 2024, the agency said its full-year performance should be “substantially ahead” of 2023, when revenue nudged down to £2.24bn and profit slumped by almost two-thirds to £55.4m.
“This is a good performance given significant volatility in transactional market sentiment over the course of 2024, which has nevertheless shown recovery in most markets,” said the firm, which is led by chief executive Mark Ridley.
“The trajectory of that recovery was inevitably somewhat shallower than anticipated at the start of the year; for investors this was a function of macroeconomic and geopolitical events including the impact of elections in key markets, significant volatility in bond yields and, latterly the interest rate expectation being ‘higher for longer’. For corporate occupiers, these factors, together with the actual and potential impact of economic and fiscal policies in a number of core markets, limited the urgency to transact.”
The EMEA business has “improved substantially”, the agency said, with the UK having performed strongly thanks to the resilience of the prime residential business.
Activity in North America delivered a “significant” improvement, the firm added, while deals in Asia have been hit by “subdued” activity in Greater China.
Savills Investment Management traded in line with expectations. Savills said 2024 had been “the nadir for core and core-plus-style investment managers”.
“In the year ahead, challenging macro conditions are expected to continue for some time; however, most markets are in recovery and as we enter 2025, whilst current financial markets are characterised by uncertainty, sentiment has turned to expectations of progressive reductions in the cost of capital being likely during the year,” the firm said.
“We expect refinancing-driven activity, the sustainability agenda and the trend towards corporates requiring greater office attendance for staff, to continue to be positive for transaction volumes. These factors lead us to expect continued improvement through 2025.”
The agency will report its results on 13 March.
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