CBRE Group (CBRE)
Advises real estate transactions, operates properties, and manages projects and investments worldwide.
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CBRE is the largest commercial real estate services firm by revenue. It runs other people's buildings, manages their construction projects, and brokers their leases and property sales. Most of the revenue comes from operating buildings, where the margin is thin; most of the profit comes from brokerage commissions. The newest push is technical work on data centres, power and telecom.
Item facts: H1 FY2026 · six months ended Jun 30, 2026, from filings, earnings calls and company pages.
Judgment weights, not filed revenue
The band summarizes business focus and direction. ~ marks estimates.
8 in detail · 8 more below
Facilities Management
The biggest line by far: cleaning, engineering, staffing and maintaining buildings under multi-year contracts across more than 7 billion square feet. Nearly half of revenue, but much of that is cost billed straight back to clients. Watch hiring — management says it cannot recruit fast enough.
Competes with Work Dynamics (JLL) · Services (Cushman & Wakefield) · Facility services (ISS A/S)
In plain English
Think of the building you work in: someone fixes the elevators, changes the filters, cleans the floors and keeps the heating working. Big companies used to employ those people themselves. CBRE now does it for them under contracts that run for years, across more than seven billion square feet of space.
The money works like a staffing agency with a clipboard: CBRE hires or subcontracts the workers, bills the client for what they cost, and adds a management fee on top. That fee is the actual earnings — which is why this line can be nearly half of revenue and still the thinner half of the business. No single client reaches a tenth of CBRE's revenue.
Property Management
The landlord's side of the same work — rent collection, operations and reporting for owners rather than occupiers. About $1.35B in the first half of 2026, growing with the space CBRE is hired to look after rather than with how many deals get done. The quietest of the big lines.
Competes with Property Management (JLL) · Asset Services (Cushman & Wakefield) · Property management (Colliers)
In plain English
Own an apartment block and you can either chase the rent yourself or hand the keys to a managing agent. CBRE is that agent, for institutional owners holding towers and warehouses rather than one building.
It collects the rent, looks after tenants, runs the on-site staff and sends the owner a monthly account. Pay is a fee tied to how much space is under its care, so income moves when contracts are won or lost rather than when deals happen — steady in a way brokerage never is. Until early 2025 this sat with the brokers; CBRE then moved it in alongside its building-operations work.
Advisory Leasing
Brokers paid a commission when a lease is signed — CBRE's largest single fee line and its most profitable big one. Global leasing revenue rose 24% in the second quarter of 2026; management expects that pace to cool in the second half.
Competes with Leasing Advisory (JLL) · Leasing (Cushman & Wakefield) · Leasing (Newmark)
In plain English
A company needs office floors; a landlord has empty ones. Somebody has to introduce them, argue over the rent and paper the deal — that somebody is a CBRE broker, hired sometimes by the tenant, sometimes by the landlord.
Sign the lease and CBRE takes a slice of what the deal is worth. Hardly any money is tied up in doing it, so when signings pick up profit climbs much faster than revenue, and when companies freeze their space plans the same arithmetic runs backwards. Volumes are recovering, though management notes office values remain well below their old peak.
Property Sales & Mortgage Banking
Brokering property sales, writing mortgages, then collecting the payments on them — a loan book of roughly $458 billion that keeps paying between deals. Sales revenue grew 39% in the first quarter of 2026 and 20% in the second, from levels still well below 2021.
Competes with Capital Markets (JLL) · Agency lending (Walker & Dunlop) · Loan servicing (Trimont)
In plain English
Two related jobs. When an office tower or apartment complex changes hands, CBRE finds the buyer and takes a cut of the price. When that buyer needs a mortgage, CBRE writes the loan and sells it on to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, insurers, banks or lending funds — keeping the job of collecting the payments.
That last part is the quiet earner: CBRE administers a book of loans worth roughly $458 billion, drawing a small fee each year whether or not anyone is buying buildings. Deal volumes are climbing again, though management says it is not counting on interest-rate cuts to help.
Turner & Townsend
The 70%-owned firm that keeps other people's building programs on budget and on schedule — data centres, public infrastructure, property projects. Revenue grew 19% in the second quarter of 2026, with infrastructure work up 30% and real estate up 13%.
Competes with Program management (AECOM) · Program management (Jacobs Solutions) · Program management (Parsons)
In plain English
Putting up a data centre or a big public works program means hundreds of contractors, years of invoices and countless ways to overspend. Turner & Townsend — the firm CBRE folded its own project business into, and now owns most of — gets hired to referee all of it: plan the program, price the work, hold the schedule.
Clients pay fees for that oversight, and the contractor costs run through CBRE's books on the way. With roughly 23,000 staff it sits first on the industry's published ranking of program managers, about one and a half times the next firm by fee revenue — but outside shareholders still take close to a third of its profit.
Critical Infrastructure Services
CBRE's newest named line and its growth story: technical work on data halls, power and telecom equipment. Guided to grow more than 60% this year off $1.7B of 2025 revenue, and data centre work across the whole company earned about a seventh of core profit last year.
Competes with Facilities Management & Operations (Salute) · Data Centers (JLL) · Data centre occupier services (Cushman & Wakefield)
In plain English
Inside a data centre somebody has to install and look after the racks of machines, the cooling and the heavy electrical gear — and much the same skill keeps power and telecom equipment running outside. CBRE bought two specialists, Direct Line Global and Pearce Services, so its own technicians can do that work instead of subcontracting it.
The customers are the companies building enormous computing sites, and they pay for upkeep continuously; CBRE looks after about 700 data centres. Revenue is still a small slice of the whole, but management expects data centre services to keep growing around 25% a year for five years, and compares the shift to its move into outsourcing in the 1990s.
Trammell Crow Company
CBRE's own-money developer: it buys land, gets it permitted and powered, then builds or sells. Barely any revenue, with the payoff arriving as gains on sale — about $30B of projects in the pipeline carrying roughly $900M of built-up gains.
Competes with Development (Lincoln Property Company) · Development (Panattoni Development Company) · Development (Tishman Speyer)
In plain English
This is the part of CBRE that takes a risk with its own money. It buys raw or tired land, wins the permissions, arranges an electricity supply, then either builds warehouses, apartments and data centres or sells the ready site to someone who will.
Fees barely register in revenue; the reward arrives later as profit on a sale, which is why this line earns far more than its size suggests and why nobody can promise the timing — a project waits on the utility connecting the power. On the published US ranking of commercial developers, Trammell Crow sits first, ahead of Lincoln Property Company.
CBRE Investment Management
Manages $155.5B of property for pension funds and other large investors, earning a fee on what those assets are worth. The steady fees keep growing; the performance-linked ones have shrunk and fundraising came in below management's expectations.
Competes with Blackstone Real Estate (Blackstone) · PGIM Real Estate (PGIM) · LaSalle Investment Management (JLL)
In plain English
A pension fund wants to own warehouses and apartment buildings without hiring anyone to choose or run them. It hands the money to CBRE's investment arm, which assembles the portfolio and looks after it.
Pay is a small annual percentage of what those buildings are worth — about $155 billion of them — plus extra when a fund does especially well. Because the fee follows values, falling property prices shrink income without a single asset being sold. New money has been slower to arrive this year, with Middle Eastern investors cautious, and profit here has been flat as those performance fees came down.
Facilities ManagementThe biggest line by far: cleaning, engineering, staffing and maintaining buildings under multi-year contracts across more than 7 billion square feet. Nearly half of revenue, but much of that is cost billed straight back to clients. Watch hiring — management says it cannot recruit fast enough.The biggest line by far: cleaning, engineering, staffing and maintaining buildings under multi-year contracts across more than 7 billion square feet. Nearly half of revenue, but much of that is cost billed straight back to clients. Watch hiring — management says it cannot recruit fast enough.
In plain English
Think of the building you work in: someone fixes the elevators, changes the filters, cleans the floors and keeps the heating working. Big companies used to employ those people themselves. CBRE now does it for them under contracts that run for years, across more than seven billion square feet of space.
The money works like a staffing agency with a clipboard: CBRE hires or subcontracts the workers, bills the client for what they cost, and adds a management fee on top. That fee is the actual earnings — which is why this line can be nearly half of revenue and still the thinner half of the business. No single client reaches a tenth of CBRE's revenue.
Competes with Work Dynamics (JLL) · Services (Cushman & Wakefield) · Facility services (ISS A/S)
Property ManagementThe landlord's side of the same work — rent collection, operations and reporting for owners rather than occupiers. About $1.35B in the first half of 2026, growing with the space CBRE is hired to look after rather than with how many deals get done. The quietest of the big lines.The landlord's side of the same work — rent collection, operations and reporting for owners rather than occupiers. About $1.35B in the first half of 2026, growing with the space CBRE is hired to look after rather than with how many deals get done. The quietest of the big lines.
In plain English
Own an apartment block and you can either chase the rent yourself or hand the keys to a managing agent. CBRE is that agent, for institutional owners holding towers and warehouses rather than one building.
It collects the rent, looks after tenants, runs the on-site staff and sends the owner a monthly account. Pay is a fee tied to how much space is under its care, so income moves when contracts are won or lost rather than when deals happen — steady in a way brokerage never is. Until early 2025 this sat with the brokers; CBRE then moved it in alongside its building-operations work.
Competes with Property Management (JLL) · Asset Services (Cushman & Wakefield) · Property management (Colliers)
Advisory LeasingBrokers paid a commission when a lease is signed — CBRE's largest single fee line and its most profitable big one. Global leasing revenue rose 24% in the second quarter of 2026; management expects that pace to cool in the second half.Brokers paid a commission when a lease is signed — CBRE's largest single fee line and its most profitable big one. Global leasing revenue rose 24% in the second quarter of 2026; management expects that pace to cool in the second half.
In plain English
A company needs office floors; a landlord has empty ones. Somebody has to introduce them, argue over the rent and paper the deal — that somebody is a CBRE broker, hired sometimes by the tenant, sometimes by the landlord.
Sign the lease and CBRE takes a slice of what the deal is worth. Hardly any money is tied up in doing it, so when signings pick up profit climbs much faster than revenue, and when companies freeze their space plans the same arithmetic runs backwards. Volumes are recovering, though management notes office values remain well below their old peak.
Competes with Leasing Advisory (JLL) · Leasing (Cushman & Wakefield) · Leasing (Newmark)
Property Sales & Mortgage BankingBrokering property sales, writing mortgages, then collecting the payments on them — a loan book of roughly $458 billion that keeps paying between deals. Sales revenue grew 39% in the first quarter of 2026 and 20% in the second, from levels still well below 2021.Brokering property sales, writing mortgages, then collecting the payments on them — a loan book of roughly $458 billion that keeps paying between deals. Sales revenue grew 39% in the first quarter of 2026 and 20% in the second, from levels still well below 2021.
In plain English
Two related jobs. When an office tower or apartment complex changes hands, CBRE finds the buyer and takes a cut of the price. When that buyer needs a mortgage, CBRE writes the loan and sells it on to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, insurers, banks or lending funds — keeping the job of collecting the payments.
That last part is the quiet earner: CBRE administers a book of loans worth roughly $458 billion, drawing a small fee each year whether or not anyone is buying buildings. Deal volumes are climbing again, though management says it is not counting on interest-rate cuts to help.
Competes with Capital Markets (JLL) · Agency lending (Walker & Dunlop) · Loan servicing (Trimont)
Turner & TownsendThe 70%-owned firm that keeps other people's building programs on budget and on schedule — data centres, public infrastructure, property projects. Revenue grew 19% in the second quarter of 2026, with infrastructure work up 30% and real estate up 13%.The 70%-owned firm that keeps other people's building programs on budget and on schedule — data centres, public infrastructure, property projects. Revenue grew 19% in the second quarter of 2026, with infrastructure work up 30% and real estate up 13%.
In plain English
Putting up a data centre or a big public works program means hundreds of contractors, years of invoices and countless ways to overspend. Turner & Townsend — the firm CBRE folded its own project business into, and now owns most of — gets hired to referee all of it: plan the program, price the work, hold the schedule.
Clients pay fees for that oversight, and the contractor costs run through CBRE's books on the way. With roughly 23,000 staff it sits first on the industry's published ranking of program managers, about one and a half times the next firm by fee revenue — but outside shareholders still take close to a third of its profit.
Competes with Program management (AECOM) · Program management (Jacobs Solutions) · Program management (Parsons)
Critical Infrastructure ServicesCBRE's newest named line and its growth story: technical work on data halls, power and telecom equipment. Guided to grow more than 60% this year off $1.7B of 2025 revenue, and data centre work across the whole company earned about a seventh of core profit last year.CBRE's newest named line and its growth story: technical work on data halls, power and telecom equipment. Guided to grow more than 60% this year off $1.7B of 2025 revenue, and data centre work across the whole company earned about a seventh of core profit last year.
In plain English
Inside a data centre somebody has to install and look after the racks of machines, the cooling and the heavy electrical gear — and much the same skill keeps power and telecom equipment running outside. CBRE bought two specialists, Direct Line Global and Pearce Services, so its own technicians can do that work instead of subcontracting it.
The customers are the companies building enormous computing sites, and they pay for upkeep continuously; CBRE looks after about 700 data centres. Revenue is still a small slice of the whole, but management expects data centre services to keep growing around 25% a year for five years, and compares the shift to its move into outsourcing in the 1990s.
Competes with Facilities Management & Operations (Salute) · Data Centers (JLL) · Data centre occupier services (Cushman & Wakefield)
Trammell Crow CompanyCBRE's own-money developer: it buys land, gets it permitted and powered, then builds or sells. Barely any revenue, with the payoff arriving as gains on sale — about $30B of projects in the pipeline carrying roughly $900M of built-up gains.CBRE's own-money developer: it buys land, gets it permitted and powered, then builds or sells. Barely any revenue, with the payoff arriving as gains on sale — about $30B of projects in the pipeline carrying roughly $900M of built-up gains.
In plain English
This is the part of CBRE that takes a risk with its own money. It buys raw or tired land, wins the permissions, arranges an electricity supply, then either builds warehouses, apartments and data centres or sells the ready site to someone who will.
Fees barely register in revenue; the reward arrives later as profit on a sale, which is why this line earns far more than its size suggests and why nobody can promise the timing — a project waits on the utility connecting the power. On the published US ranking of commercial developers, Trammell Crow sits first, ahead of Lincoln Property Company.
Competes with Development (Lincoln Property Company) · Development (Panattoni Development Company) · Development (Tishman Speyer)
CBRE Investment ManagementManages $155.5B of property for pension funds and other large investors, earning a fee on what those assets are worth. The steady fees keep growing; the performance-linked ones have shrunk and fundraising came in below management's expectations.Manages $155.5B of property for pension funds and other large investors, earning a fee on what those assets are worth. The steady fees keep growing; the performance-linked ones have shrunk and fundraising came in below management's expectations.
In plain English
A pension fund wants to own warehouses and apartment buildings without hiring anyone to choose or run them. It hands the money to CBRE's investment arm, which assembles the portfolio and looks after it.
Pay is a small annual percentage of what those buildings are worth — about $155 billion of them — plus extra when a fund does especially well. Because the fee follows values, falling property prices shrink income without a single asset being sold. New money has been slower to arrive this year, with Middle Eastern investors cautious, and profit here has been flat as those performance fees came down.
Competes with Blackstone Real Estate (Blackstone) · PGIM Real Estate (PGIM) · LaSalle Investment Management (JLL)
Named in filings, launches and programs
- ValuationServiceTelling owners and lenders what a building is worth; $420M of revenue in the first half of 2026, steady fee work underneath every transaction.
- Data Center SolutionsProduct line · RampingThe data-centre half of critical infrastructure work; management expects it to reach $2 billion of revenue in 2026 and grow about 20% a year.
- IndustriousBrandFlexible-workspace brand CBRE bought outright in January 2025 for about $400M; it is targeting more than 300 locations by end-2026, from around 200.
- Pearce ServicesBrandBought November 2025 for about $1.2B; its crews service critical power, telecom and renewable-energy equipment, and now sit inside the critical-infrastructure line.
- Direct Line GlobalBrandAcquired in 2024; installs and maintains the technical equipment inside data halls, now part of Data Center Solutions.
- CBRE Government & Defense ServicesBrandFormerly J&J Worldwide Services, bought in 2024 for up to $1.05B: US federal buildings and military healthcare estates. Management sizes that market near $20B.
- Local facilities managementServiceSmaller local contracts rather than the multi-site global ones; Americas revenue grew from $330M in 2021 to $800M in 2025, the faster-growing half.
- Other portfolio servicesServiceA catch-all of smaller client services reported on its own line; $163M of revenue in the first half of 2026.
ValuationService
Telling owners and lenders what a building is worth; $420M of revenue in the first half of 2026, steady fee work underneath every transaction.
Data Center SolutionsProduct line · Ramping
The data-centre half of critical infrastructure work; management expects it to reach $2 billion of revenue in 2026 and grow about 20% a year.
IndustriousBrand
Flexible-workspace brand CBRE bought outright in January 2025 for about $400M; it is targeting more than 300 locations by end-2026, from around 200.
Pearce ServicesBrand
Bought November 2025 for about $1.2B; its crews service critical power, telecom and renewable-energy equipment, and now sit inside the critical-infrastructure line.
Direct Line GlobalBrand
Acquired in 2024; installs and maintains the technical equipment inside data halls, now part of Data Center Solutions.
CBRE Government & Defense ServicesBrand
Formerly J&J Worldwide Services, bought in 2024 for up to $1.05B: US federal buildings and military healthcare estates. Management sizes that market near $20B.
Local facilities managementService
Smaller local contracts rather than the multi-site global ones; Americas revenue grew from $330M in 2021 to $800M in 2025, the faster-growing half.
Other portfolio servicesService
A catch-all of smaller client services reported on its own line; $163M of revenue in the first half of 2026.