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There is no defensible single winner among Colliers, CBRE and JLL without a same-date valuation and a clear definition of quality. The useful comparison is a business analysis: identify how much revenue is contracted or recurring, how much depends on property transactions, whether growth is organic or acquired, how margins and cash flow are measured, and what price the market assigns to comparable earnings or free cash flow.
The latest figures available here cover full-year 2025 and selected 2026 filings. They show three global service businesses with different segment mixes and accounting presentations. Use the framework below to reach a valuation view; do not treat headline revenue growth or company-defined adjusted metrics as directly interchangeable.
Start with the business models, not the stock charts
Colliers, CBRE and JLL all help owners, occupiers, investors and developers operate or transact in commercial property, but they do not earn money in the same proportions. A leasing assignment, a facilities-management contract, a capital-markets sale and an investment-management performance fee have different timing, margins and sensitivity to interest rates and property prices.
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A fair comparison therefore asks four questions in order:
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- What services are being sold? Separate facilities, property and project management from leasing, capital markets, valuation and investment-management fees.
- How durable is the revenue? Contracted outsourcing and loan servicing can provide visibility, while commissions and performance fees usually depend on transaction volume or investment results.
- How much growth is internally generated? Acquisitions, joint ventures and segment reclassifications can make reported growth look stronger or change the historical comparison.
- What are investors paying? Market capitalization, enterprise value, diluted shares, debt, cash and a normalized earnings or free-cash-flow denominator must all be measured on the same date.
These questions matter more than the simple ranking of 2025 revenue. CBRE is the largest by reported revenue, but a large portion includes pass-through costs. Colliers has a smaller service base but a substantial engineering operation, and JLL combines transaction services with a large real-estate-management platform and a separately reported investment-management business.
Business segments at a glance
| Company | Reported businesses in the cited materials | What the mix implies for analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Colliers | Commercial Real Estate; Engineering; Investment Management | Commercial real estate contains capital markets, leasing and outsourcing. Engineering growth can reflect acquired scale as well as internal expansion. Investment-management fees can include recurring fees and less predictable performance or catch-up fees. |
| CBRE | Advisory Services; Building Operations & Experience (BOE); Project Management; Real Estate Investments (REI) | Advisory contains leasing, capital markets, loan servicing and valuation. BOE and Project Management add more service-contract exposure but also substantial pass-through revenue. REI includes investment management and development services. |
| JLL | At 2025 year-end: Real Estate Management Services and Workplace Management, Leasing Advisory, Capital Markets Services, Investment Management, and Software and Technology Solutions. From January 1, 2026: four segments after software and technology moved into Real Estate Management Services. | Use recast 2026 comparative figures where available. Do not treat the old software segment and the new management-services segment as unchanged historical categories. |
Segment names are not economic equivalents. For example, one issuer may place workplace technology inside a management segment while another reports related activity separately. Read the segment definitions and revenue-recognition notes before calculating growth or margins.
Colliers: a service platform with engineering-driven growth
2025 revenue mix
Colliers reported 2025 Commercial Real Estate revenue of $3.29 billion, up 7% from the prior year. Within that business, Capital Markets grew 16%, Leasing grew 2% and Outsourcing grew 7%. Those rates already show why a single segment growth figure is incomplete: capital-markets activity was much more responsive than leasing, while outsourcing was the steadier service stream.
Engineering revenue was $1.73 billion, up 40%. Colliers attributed that increase to both acquisitions and internal growth. The 40% figure is therefore not an organic-growth rate. An investor should request the acquisition contribution, compare same-store or constant-scope performance where disclosed, and examine whether acquired businesses carry the same margins and cash-conversion profile as the pre-existing platform.
Investment Management revenue was $532.3 million, up 4%. Colliers noted that prior-year catch-up fees did not recur. That qualification is important: a modest reported increase can conceal a difficult comparison in which a non-recurring prior-year item raises the base, while a future performance-fee year could make growth appear unusually high.
2026 balance-sheet and earnings datapoint
For the first quarter of 2026, Colliers reported revenue of $1.3135 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $124.8 million. Dividing those two company-reported figures gives an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 9.5%, but that is not a GAAP operating margin. Adjusted EBITDA excludes items according to Colliers’ own definition, so compare the reconciliation and excluded items before placing it beside another issuer’s adjusted measure.
Colliers’ first-quarter presentation showed 2.3× net debt to pro forma adjusted EBITDA at March 31, 2026. This is a date-specific company calculation using pro forma adjusted EBITDA; it is not a standardized leverage ranking against CBRE or JLL. Check debt maturities, acquisition funding, lease liabilities and the effect of currency before drawing a cross-company conclusion. Colliers’ cited results are presented in U.S. dollars, while the presentation separately discusses Canadian-dollar financing, so do not mix currencies in a leverage or valuation spreadsheet.
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How to interpret Colliers
Colliers offers a relatively transparent contrast between transaction-sensitive commercial real estate services, engineering and investment management. The key analytical task is to determine how much of engineering’s expansion came from purchased businesses and whether outsourcing growth is producing recurring cash flow. Capital-markets growth can improve earnings quickly in a recovery, but it may reverse when sales and financing volumes weaken.
CBRE: scale with a changing mix of recurring and transaction revenue
2025 headline results
CBRE reported $40.6 billion of revenue and $1.2 billion of consolidated net income for 2025 in its Form 10-K. Revenue is not a clean measure of economic scale because Building Operations & Experience and Project Management include pass-through costs. For operational comparisons, examine segment profitability, net revenue where disclosed, and cash flow rather than assuming every revenue dollar has a similar margin.
What each CBRE segment contains
- Advisory Services: leasing, capital markets, loan servicing and valuation. Leasing and capital-markets commissions are tied to occupier demand, property sales and financing conditions; loan servicing and valuation can have different timing and recurrence.
- Building Operations & Experience: facilities management, property management, digital infrastructure services and flexible workplace solutions. These activities generally provide more contracted or repeat service work, although contract terms, labor costs and client concentration still matter.
- Project Management: project-management activity, including Turner & Townsend. Project work can be long-lived and visible while a program is underway, but it is not identical to a perpetual facilities-management contract.
- Real Estate Investments: investment management and development services. Fee-related earnings, incentive fees and development results should be separated when assessing recurring profitability.
Structural changes investors must adjust for
Project Management became a separate reportable segment in 2025 after CBRE combined its project-management business with Turner & Townsend, in which CBRE owns 70%. Building Operations & Experience was also established as a segment after the acquisition of Industrious. Historical segment comparisons should therefore identify whether a change reflects underlying demand, acquired operations or a new presentation.
CBRE’s 2025 filing describes a combination of resilient service streams and non-recurring commission revenue. Management said the mix had become more weighted toward resilient sources, particularly occupier outsourcing and project management, and less dependent on property-sale and lease transactions. Treat that as management’s description of the current mix, not a guarantee that the mix or market conditions will persist. The filing also linked increased sales and financing activity in 2025 with broader capital availability and lower borrowing costs; those conditions can change quickly.
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CBRE’s scale can diversify individual transactions and support a broad outsourcing platform, but headline revenue must be normalized for pass-through costs and acquisitions. Compare Advisory Services with the transaction-sensitive portions of Colliers and JLL, then compare BOE and Project Management with their contracted management and project businesses. A consolidated revenue multiple without that adjustment can overvalue low-margin reimbursed costs.
JLL: strong 2025 cash generation, with a 2026 segment recast
2025 operating picture
JLL reported $26.1 billion of 2025 revenue. Its full-year results release reported 9% growth in Real Estate Management Services, 19% growth in Capital Markets Services and 17% growth in Leasing. The release also reported record operating cash flow of $1.2 billion and nearly $1.0 billion of free cash flow for 2025.
Those cash figures are useful, but free cash flow is only comparable when the definition, capital-expenditure treatment, working-capital period and one-time items match the measures used for Colliers and CBRE. Do not turn JLL’s reported amount into a sector-wide margin or yield without obtaining equivalent figures for the other two companies.
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The segment change effective January 1, 2026
JLL moved Software and Technology Solutions into Real Estate Management Services beginning January 1, 2026. It now reports four segments: Real Estate Management Services, Leasing Advisory, Capital Markets Services and Investment Management. The first-quarter 2026 filing says comparative prior-period financial information was recast to conform to the new presentation. Use those recast figures when available; comparing an unrecast 2025 software line with a recast 2026 management-services line would manufacture a growth rate from a definition change.
How to interpret JLL
JLL’s 2025 results show both transaction recovery and significant cash generation. Capital Markets and Leasing are cyclical, while real-estate-management work is typically more contract-based. Investment Management adds fee and performance sensitivity. The right question is not whether 19% or 17% growth is impressive in isolation, but how much of the increase converts to operating cash after working-capital needs and how durable the management-services base is after the software recast.
Compare revenue quality before comparing growth
Revenue quality means visibility, margin potential and sensitivity to the property cycle—not simply whether a service is labeled recurring. Use the following map when reading the filings:
| Revenue type | Typical economic characteristics | Questions to ask in each company |
|---|---|---|
| Facilities, property and real-estate-management contracts | Often recurring for the contract term; exposed to renewals, staffing costs and client concentration. | What is the average contract duration, renewal rate, termination right and margin after labor costs? |
| Project management | Can provide multi-period visibility but normally ends when projects finish; reimbursed costs may inflate reported revenue. | How much is pass-through, and what is the margin on net revenue rather than gross billings? |
| Loan servicing and valuation | May be repeat business and less directly tied to a single sale, but volumes and credit conditions still matter. | Are fees contractual, volume-based or tied to distressed assets? |
| Leasing and capital-markets commissions | Usually transaction-sensitive; revenue can surge in a recovery and fall sharply when sales, financing or leasing slow. | What are pipelines, backlog and conversion assumptions, and how quickly do commissions reach cash flow? |
| Investment-management performance or catch-up fees | Potentially high-margin but irregular; timing depends on fund performance, realizations and contractual hurdles. | How much of reported growth came from base fees versus incentive or catch-up fees? |
Do not assume similarly named segments are economically identical. A property-management contract may include reimbursed expenses; a project-management line may include construction costs paid on behalf of a client; and an investment-management segment may combine stable base fees with volatile incentive fees. Read the revenue-recognition and segment-profit disclosures together.
Separate organic growth from acquisitions and presentation changes
Colliers
The engineering increase was explicitly attributed to acquisitions and internal growth. Build two views: reported growth, which reflects the enlarged company, and organic growth, which reflects operations owned in both periods. Then test whether acquired businesses changed the margin, working-capital and capital-expenditure profile.
CBRE
Turner & Townsend and Industrious changed the scope and segment presentation in 2025. A year-over-year comparison should identify the months each business contributed, any purchase-accounting effects and the pro forma baseline management uses. Do not attribute all Project Management or BOE growth to underlying demand.
JLL
The available materials establish a 2026 software-to-management-services recast but do not provide a comparable acquisition-adjusted growth bridge for every JLL segment. Where an organic figure is not disclosed, label the result as reported growth and avoid estimating an acquisition contribution from consolidated revenue alone.
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A practical bridge
- Record the issuer’s reported year-over-year change.
- Subtract or separately identify revenue from businesses acquired, disposed of or consolidated during the period.
- Restate prior periods for segment reclassifications using the issuer’s recast figures.
- Calculate constant-currency growth when currencies are material, then retain the reported-currency figure for reconciliation.
- Compare organic revenue with organic operating income or adjusted EBITDA; acquisitions can add revenue while diluting margins.
Profitability: keep GAAP and adjusted measures separate
Start with GAAP revenue, operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share. These measures provide the common accounting foundation, although they still require attention to pass-through costs, purchase accounting and non-controlling interests.
Then examine each company’s adjusted operating earnings or adjusted EBITDA reconciliation. Adjusted EBITDA may exclude restructuring, acquisition costs, stock compensation, amortization, gains and other items differently at each issuer. A higher adjusted margin is not automatically a better economic margin if one company excludes recurring acquisition or compensation costs that another leaves in operating expense.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware match- Compare GAAP operating margin to show the reported result.
- Compare adjusted operating margin or EBITDA margin only after reading the reconciliation and confirming the numerator is defined consistently.
- For CBRE, test margins on net revenue or segment profit where pass-through costs make gross revenue misleading.
- For Colliers, keep the first-quarter 2026 adjusted EBITDA figure separate from full-year 2025 GAAP results.
- For JLL, connect operating margins to the reported operating and free-cash-flow figures rather than treating revenue growth as earnings growth.
Also check whether incentive fees, catch-up fees or development gains are included in the period. A high-margin performance fee can improve one year’s results without increasing the recurring fee base.
Cash generation, leverage and capital allocation
Cash-flow comparison
JLL reported 2025 operating cash flow of $1.2 billion and nearly $1.0 billion of free cash flow. For Colliers and CBRE, the cited materials do not provide synchronized full-year operating-cash-flow and free-cash-flow figures that can be ranked directly against JLL. Obtain the same fiscal period and definition before calculating free-cash-flow margins or yields.
When the figures are available, reconcile:
- Operating cash flow to net income, identifying working-capital swings and incentive-fee timing.
- Capital expenditures, including software or implementation spending that may be treated differently across issuers.
- Acquisition spending and earn-out payments, which are investing or financing uses but affect the cash available to shareholders.
- Free cash flow per diluted share, using the same diluted-share convention for all three companies.
Leverage and funding
Colliers’ 2.3× net debt to pro forma adjusted EBITDA at March 31, 2026 is a useful company-specific datapoint, not a cross-company league table. For every issuer, inspect debt maturities, floating-rate exposure, covenant definitions, lease liabilities, pension obligations and acquisition commitments. Lower leverage can reduce risk but may also reflect a company that has not invested in growth; higher leverage can amplify returns and downturn losses.
Capital allocation
Review acquisitions, dividends and repurchases over several years. A repurchase can increase per-share earnings while total earnings are flat, whereas an acquisition can raise revenue immediately but require integration spending and additional debt. The relevant test is return on invested capital after integration, not the announcement-date growth rate.
Valuation: build a same-date, like-for-like comparison
The available figures do not establish which stock is cheapest. A credible valuation ranking requires a synchronized market date, share class, diluted share count, net debt and comparable earnings or cash-flow measure.
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Enterprise-value approach
- Choose one market close date and record the price for the relevant listed share class.
- Multiply price by diluted shares outstanding to estimate equity value; account for multiple share classes and restricted shares.
- Add debt and other debt-like obligations, then subtract cash and cash equivalents to calculate enterprise value. State whether lease liabilities and non-controlling interests are included.
- Use normalized operating earnings, adjusted EBITDA or free cash flow for the same trailing or forward period.
- Calculate EV/EBITDA, EV/operating income and EV/free cash flow, then reconcile each numerator to the issuer’s reported measure.
Equity-value approach
Price-to-earnings and price-to-free-cash-flow ratios are useful only when net income and free cash flow are normalized for one-time incentive fees, restructuring, acquisition costs and working-capital timing. Use diluted per-share figures, not basic shares, when options, restricted stock or convertible securities are material.
Normalize for the property cycle
A transaction-heavy year can make a cyclical company look inexpensive on trailing earnings just before volumes decline. Conversely, a trough year can make a durable service platform look expensive. Use a multi-year average, a mid-cycle margin or a scenario range rather than one unusually strong or weak quarter. Clearly label any forecast as an assumption; the cited company releases do not provide a synchronized valuation snapshot.
Cycle exposure and geography
Capital markets, leasing and property sales respond to transaction volumes, financing availability, interest rates and investor confidence. Facilities management, property management, loan servicing and some project work may be more resilient, but they remain exposed to contract renewals, labor costs, client budgets and development cycles.
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A repeatable worksheet for comparing the three stocks
- Fix the date and currency. Use full-year 2025 for the operating comparison, then add the specific 2026 interim figures with their dates. Keep Colliers’ U.S.-dollar reporting separate from Canadian-dollar financing references.
- Map segments to economic activities. Tag each line as contracted management, project work, loan servicing, leasing, capital markets, investment management or technology.
- Remove presentation noise. Use JLL’s recast figures after the 2026 segment change and flag CBRE’s new Project Management and BOE presentation.
- Build reported and organic columns. Include acquisition contributions where disclosed and mark them as not stated when the filing does not provide a bridge.
- Measure revenue quality. Estimate the proportion of base fees and contracts versus commissions, incentive fees and pass-through billings, using the issuer’s definitions.
- Compare profitability twice. Show GAAP operating margin first, then a separately labeled adjusted measure with its reconciliation.
- Reconcile cash. Use operating cash flow, capital expenditure and free cash flow for identical periods and definitions.
- Stress the balance sheet. Model lower transaction volumes, delayed projects, weaker leasing and higher refinancing costs.
- Calculate valuation last. Use the same share count, net-debt treatment and normalized denominator for all three.
- Write the conclusion as a trade-off. State which business characteristics the valuation rewards or ignores; do not label one stock best without a method and current data.
Common comparison mistakes
- Ranking by revenue alone: Gross billings with pass-through costs can overstate the economic difference between companies.
- Calling all growth organic: Colliers’ engineering result included acquisitions, and CBRE’s 2025 structure changed after major combinations.
- Mixing segment definitions: JLL’s software recast means old and new labels are not directly comparable without recast data.
- Combining adjusted metrics: Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating earnings are company-defined and may exclude different costs.
- Repeating a one-time fee: Catch-up or performance fees can distort both growth and margins.
- Ignoring pass-through revenue: Evaluate CBRE’s BOE and Project Management on net economics where possible.
- Using different dates: A March 31 leverage ratio and a later stock price do not form a single-date valuation.
- Assuming global equals defensive: International diversification does not remove leasing, sales, financing or labor exposure.
- Declaring a cheapest stock without a denominator: A multiple is meaningful only when earnings or cash flow are normalized and comparable.
What different investor conclusions could mean
If you value recurring service revenue
Favor the company whose disclosures show the clearest contract duration, renewal economics, base-fee contribution and cash conversion. Verify that reported revenue is not mostly reimbursed cost and that acquisitions are not masking stagnant organic performance.
If you want transaction recovery exposure
Focus on the mix and operating leverage of leasing and capital-markets businesses. Higher growth in a recovery can produce strong incremental profit, but the same exposure increases downside if sales, financing or leasing activity weakens.
If you prioritize cash return
Compare normalized free cash flow per diluted share after maintenance capital expenditure, acquisition spending and working-capital requirements. Then assess debt maturities and the portion of cash flow management can distribute without weakening the platform.
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If you prioritize balance-sheet resilience
Use net debt, interest coverage, maturity schedules and downside cash-flow scenarios rather than a single leverage ratio. Colliers’ 2.3× figure is informative for its stated date and definition, but it does not by itself establish that Colliers is more or less leveraged than CBRE or JLL.
Bottom line: compare the earnings engine before the ticker
Colliers, CBRE and JLL are not interchangeable versions of one commercial-real-estate stock. Colliers combines commercial real estate with a large engineering operation and investment management; CBRE combines advisory work with extensive building operations, project management and real-estate investments; JLL combines management services, leasing, capital markets and investment management while changing its segment presentation in 2026.
The strongest comparison is a same-date worksheet that separates contracted services from commissions and performance fees, reported growth from organic growth, gross billings from net economics, and GAAP results from company-defined adjustments. The evidence summarized here supports that business analysis, but it does not establish a current cheapest or best stock. That conclusion requires current prices, share counts, net debt and normalized earnings or free cash flow calculated on one consistent basis.
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