Global real estate market may have turned the corner, says JLL's chief exec

On any given working day, the firm is doing over a billion dollars worth of deals, he adds

- Ravi Velloor

Sometimes, the pebbles of experiences that you fill the jar with in childhood are the boulders you extract much later in life, stuff that shapes you in a manner as much as all the degrees and qualifications you might have accumulated along the way.

Ask Mr Christian Ulbrich, chief executive officer of the global real estate services and consultancy firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).

Growing up in the Hamburg region of Germany, Mr Ulbrich would return from school to help out in the wood business his parents operated, importing from across the world and selling veneer and other finished products to furniture companies around Europe.

"I grew up observing the business, and learning what it is to be responsible for other people," Mr Ulbrich, 58 years old this year, told me recently.

"It was a very entrepreneurial environment, and it had implications in my later life."

Certainly, it seems to have paid off for JLL. Its share price is up more than 40 per cent in the past five years and more than double the trough of May 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic began sweeping the world.

How did he get there? Beginning his career in banking Mr Ulbrich worked for global institutions until a series of happy accidents saw him placed as CEO of Bank Companie Nord, a small regional lender concentrated in northern Germany, at age 29.

The large global bank he was working with had a restructuring case on its hands, and the chairman of the smaller bank, based in Kiel, was looking for someone to turn it around.

Several experienced bankers spurned the offer, and eventually, the opportunity came Mr Ulbrich's way.

"He was looking for someone crazy enough to take this upon his shoulders," says Mr Ulrbrich.