SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - International real estate advisory firm Savills has announced its preliminary financial results for FY2022 ended Dec 31, 2022. The company reported group revenue of GBP2.3 billion ($3.57 billion), marking a 7% y-o-y increase from GBP2.15 billion in FY2021. However, underlying profit before tax fell 18% y-o-y, coming in at GBP164.6 million.

The boost in revenue for FY2022 was supported by an increase across all segments.  Transactional advisory revenues grew 4% y-o-y, while Savills' less transactional businesses - referring to property and facilities management, investment management, as well as consultancy - increased 9% y-o-y.

Savills' property and facilities management business saw a 13% y-o-y increase in revenue, while consultancy revenue grew by 4% y-o-y. Meanwhile, investment management revenue grew 1% y-o-y, with assets under management up from GBP21.9 billion in FY2021 to GBP22.1 billion in FY2022.

Commenting on the results, Mark Ridley, group chief executive of Savills, says the group's performance in 2022 was "slightly ahead" of expectations amid challenging markets. "More importantly, perhaps, the group’s performance was substantially ahead of the 2019 ‘pre-Covid’ comparative period. The strength of our less transactional businesses, primarily consultancy and property Management, helped underpin the group’s performance overall," he continues.

Ridley also highlighted challenges expected in the year ahead, with inflation and interest rates remaining focal points for some time. "As a result, the speed at which individual investment markets adjust to the cost of debt is uncertain, although certain markets, such as the UK, are recalibrating faster than in the past, and will be helped by the lack of development supply and an overall trend to sustainability," he says.

Given the challenging circumstances, Ridley expects progressive improvement only from the second half of the year onwards. "2024 should see more positive conditions for real estate market activity and Savills is both retaining its bench strength and investing in advance of such recovery," he adds.

Marcus Loo, CEO for Savills Singapore, says: “Our transactional teams have once again performed extremely strongly, having closed a number of key deals last year. With significant acquisitions, we are also pushing forward to further expand and grow our non-transactional area of the business both locally and regionally."