Jones Lang LaSalle Inc, the world's second-largest property brokerage and advisory group, will add about 1,250 employees in China and India this year, according to the head of its Asia business, as it looks to those emerging nations and Indonesia for growth amid unusually choppy property markets.
"We expect there to be more varied market conditions in 2012 than many people can remember within the Asia-Pacific region," Alastair Hughes, Asia-Pacific chief executive, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. "We could have Beijing office rents rising by 15% and Hong Kong offices rents falling by 15%. That's very unusual."
The company, which has 22,000 employees in Asia, also expects to gobble up more property brokerages in the region as it targets work with domestic players in those markets, digging deeper than its traditional customer base of multinational companies and global property investors.
"I would be surprised if we didn't do some acquisitions," Hughes said. "It's a very ripe environment at the moment."
