JLL India revenue grew by 17% to Rs 4,000 crore – FY19 report.

By Abhay Shah, Realty Quarter

Despite the slowdown in the real estate market, property consultant JLL India’s revenue grew 17% to Rs 4,000 crore in 2018-19 and is planning to recruit 2,000 employees by the end of next year to maintain this growth momentum.

During the financial year 2017-18, JLL India, which is a part of global real estate consultant JLL, posted revenue of Rs 3,420 crore. It presently has a workforce of 11,500 people across its offices in more than 10 major cities.

Ramesh Nair, JLL India’s chief executive officer and country head, said its revenue development was fuelled by increasing demand from both investors and end-users for Indian commercial real estate, particularly office space.

“The steady growth of the commercial real estate sector is reflected in the consistent growth of our revenue,” said Nair. He pointed out that all businesses performed well, such as brokerage services (commercial and residential) transactions, integrated facilities management and property/asset management.

“Our enormous customer base in the region remains to contribute to this growth. As JLL is a client-centric company, we expect growth in the future as well,” Nair said.

On recruiting plans, he said that JLL India has the biggest workforce in the Asia-Pacific region with around 11,500 employees and seeks to further increase based on business requirements.

“We are presently hiring for 800 openings. By the end of this year, the total headcount is likely to reach 12,000 and by the end of 2020, 13,000-13,500,” Nair said, adding that the company’s attrition rate was also smaller than its competitors.

Further elaborating, Nair said that JLL India would add a great deal of workers to help its residential segment brokerage business, which has begun to revive particularly in the affordable category. “India is also a critical nation for JLL global. Here, we have three worldwide centres of competence in technology and information management fields. We will also scale these business verticals,” Nair said.

Asked about the present market scenario, JLL India’s CEO said the housing segment is gradually gaining power in terms of sales and deliveries, while the commercial segment is already growing. “Various reforms such as RERA, Amendment of the Benami Transactions Act and subsequent implementation of GST have helped to restore confidence and credibility among the homebuyers in the industry.”

He said there is an enormous demand on the office market for ready and quality offices, reflected in robust leasing transactions. The retail segment will also continue to grow driven by the high disposable income youth population.

JLL is a Fortune 500 company with $16.3 billion annual income, operations in more than 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 91,000 as of March 31, 2019.