You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: During the call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors.
A transcript of this conference call will also be posted on our website.
As a result, the factors discussed in the annual report on Form 10-K of the fiscal year ended, December 31, 2020 and in other reports filed with the SEC.
Overall, I'm extremely pleased with how our team across the world performed in 2020, providing exceptional services to our clients, while successfully navigating the pandemic-related challenges and delivering solid results for all our stakeholders.
Our fiscal year was capped off by a better than expected performance in the fourth quarter, which is a testament to the growing strengths of our platform.
While we remained cautious about the first half of 2021 given the extent of uncertainty related to the pandemic, we are proud of JLL's execution for a unique year in 2020.
Before turning to the market environment and our financial performance, I wanted to briefly explain how some of the strategic investments made prior to 2020 supported us to successfully navigate this past year.
Our technology investments in finance and HR ERP systems, and the migration of all geographies and business lines into one accounting system, provided management much better visibility into our working capital position, while we were able to significantly improve our receivables collections and enhance cash generation.
I cannot emphasize enough how vital this was to effectively manage our overall liquidity, repaying debt ahead of our schedule and continuing to invest to drive future growth.
Secondly, the investment in our Capital Markets' CRM platform, while we also integrated our colleagues from HFF, allowed us to share client information seamlessly and promote cross-selling throughout the organization.
This has been a strong contributor to our success in 2020, also evidenced by our fourth quarter performance in Americas Capital Markets relative to the overall market.
We will continue to invest in superior technology tools and leveraging our data to further enhance our value proposition for customers, differentiate us from the competition and ultimately create value for shareholders.
In 2020, we also accelerated the organizational transformation initiated in January 2019 through the appointment of new global and regional leadership roles, further enhancing the global integration of our services and expertise.
It is also important to note that we are focused on helping our clients plan their transition to a post-pandemic environment, leveraging our thought leadership to advice on the future of work, the changing role of the office and the evolution of cities.
Turning to the market environment.
The development and administration of vaccines in the fourth quarter marked the first steps in a long march toward a post-pandemic environment.
While the second half of 2020 saw the beginning signs of recovery, many countries are witnessing record-breaking levels of new cases.
Significant uncertainty will continue to weigh on the overall recovery as the world waits for widespread immunization to an extent that will bring the pandemic under control and further bode for the economic development.
Relative to the global office leasing market, JLL Research reported that activity in the fourth quarter was down 43% from a year earlier.
The United States saw a much sharper decline compared to the other regions with activity down 53%.
EMEA and Asia Pacific recorded decreases in activity of 39% and 25% respectively relative to last year.
Vacancy rates increased across all regions in the fourth quarter with a global vacancy rate now at 12.9%, the highest level since 2014.
Global Capital Markets continue to recover from the sharp contraction recorded earlier in the year as declines in investment sales decelerated in the fourth quarter led by a robust rebound in activity in the Americas and large European markets.
Despite the challenges throughout the year, the decisive actions undertaken by our team as well as the overall resilience of our platform enabled JLL to deliver solid results for the year.
Consolidated revenue fell 8% to $16.6 billion and fee revenue declined 14% to $6.1 billion in local currency.
We recorded adjusted EBITDA of $860 million, a decline of 24% from the prior year and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $9.46, which represented a decline of 34% from the prior year.
It is worth noting that despite the challenges of 2020, we were able to achieve a full year 14% adjusted EBITDA margin, which is within our long-term target range of 14% to 16%.
We also generated a record $1.1 billion in operating cash flow, testament to the strength of our business model and ability to navigate a downturn.
Turning our attention to our fourth quarter performance.
Consolidated revenue fell 12% to $4.8 billion and fee revenue declined 19% to $2 billion in local currency.
Adjusted EBITDA of $417 million represented a decline of 18% from the prior year, although adjusted EBITDA margin increased 50 basis point to 21.3% as reported, driven by cost mitigation initiatives and some government COVID programs.
Adjusted net income totaled $276 million for the quarter and adjusted diluted earnings per share totaled $5.29.
As I alluded to on the third quarter earnings call, Capital Markets transaction volumes, especially in the Americas came back faster than Leasing as investors began to adapt to the current environment to put capital to work.
Logistics and multifamily housing continued to demonstrate resiliency.
However, though our transactional pipelines are building, the market remains uncertain in the near-term and activity has not yet normalized.
Throughout 2020, a key priority of management has been our revenue and corresponding refinement of our capital allocation strategy.
Our strategy is underpinned by a framework that considers allocation across three main pillars, maintaining an investment grade balance sheet, driving future growth through organic and inorganic investments in the business and returning cash to shareholders.
Our commitment to an investment grade balance sheet, enables access to the Capital Markets throughout the cycle.
We repaid the debt associated with the HFF transaction one quarter earlier than expected, which speaks to our diligent cash management and operational focus.
Our current approach is to operate within a reported net leverage range of 0.5 to 1.25 times, recognizing that there may be periods outside of this range due to seasonality and other short-term factors.
The strengths of our balance sheet and ability to generate meaningful cash flows and enable us to reinvest significantly into our business.
Funding initiatives that will drive profitable organic growth and attractive returns on capital and that are aligned with our beyond 2025 goals, remains the main priority for JLL.
This includes technology investments, which we believe is a significant differentiator for JLL.
M&A will continue to be an avenue of growth for JLL in a consolidating industry.
We will strategically evaluate opportunities as they arise.
There are no gaps in our portfolio, so our bar is high.
Any opportunity must meet our already rigorous standards specifically, they must be value-accretive acquisitions that are appropriately priced, have a strong cultural and strategic fit and generate a return on invested capital of at least 12%.
Over the long-term, we are committed to returning approximately 20% our free cash flow to shareholders.
The percentage will vary year-to-year depending on the investment opportunities we identify.
Before 2020, our primary method of returning cash has been through a dividend.
During 2020, we made the decision to shift our primary distribution method to share repurchases, due to the increased flexibility and attractive market conditions.
We evaluate share repurchases the same way we evaluate an acquisition or investment, by analyzing capital invested and expected returns.
If we expect to earn a higher return repurchasing JLL shares, then we will allocate capital accordingly.
Our 2020 repurchase activity was reflective of this approach.
We repurchased 100 million worth of shares at an average price of $111.
For perspective, this is slightly more than twice the amount we returned to shareholders via dividends in 2019.
We have 100 million remaining on our existing repurchase authorization and the Board of Directors recently authorized an incremental 500 million share repurchase program for a total of $600 million.
Our overall fourth quarter performance exceeded the upper end of our expectations, driven largely by Capital Markets.
I'll briefly highlight two notable items that speak to our cautious optimism for 2021, particularly the second half of the year.
First, the year-over-year Real Estate Services fee revenue percentage decline in the fourth quarter improved modestly versus the third quarter, indicative of solid performance of Americas Capital Markets.
Second, our continued focus on capital and operating efficiency coupled with earnings.
Once again, it yielded strong cash generation in the quarter, which we use to fully pay down our revolving credit facility and return an additional $50 million of cash to shareholders via repurchases.
Moving to a detailed review of operating performance.
Our transactional, Leasing and Capital Markets' businesses reflected ongoing uncertainty regarding the evolution of the pandemic and its impact on decision-making by corporate occupiers and investors.
While we are encouraged by the trends in our pipelines and recent performance in both service lines, we expect transactional activity to remain subdued over the near-term before picking up in the second half of the year with Leasing lagging Capital Markets.
Fourth quarter Capital Markets fee revenue declined 15% from 2019, a market improvement from the 43% decline in the third quarter.
The improvement was broad-based across our geographic segments and service offerings.
The resiliency of our multifamily business and notable improvement in our Americas investment and debt advisory businesses speaks to the breadth and strength of our platform, as well as synergies from the HFF acquisition.
It is also worth noting that we decreased our loan loss credit reserves in the Americas by $9 million, partly offsetting the $31 million charge we took in the first quarter.
I'd like to highlight one of many examples that demonstrate the power and cross-selling opportunities of our combined JLL-HFF Capital Markets platform.
The sale and financing of the iconic Transamerica Pyramid Center in San Francisco for $650 million and $390 million respectively during the fourth quarter.
Despite the pandemic, the expanded JLL-HFF footprint drove a strong and diverse bidder pool, ultimately securing a joint venture partnership between a domestic and cross-border buyer.
In addition to representing the seller, procuring the buyers and arranging the financing, JLL retained the property management and project and development services contracts, and successfully secured the Leasing mandate during the sales process.
Looking at the global capital markets environment, investment sales dropped 21% in the quarter and 28% for the year according to JLL Research.
While the secular trend of increasing capital allocations to commercial real estate remains evident, activity remains somewhat muted as investors continue to adjust valuations and pricing to reflect the current environment.
However, we saw an even more broad-based tightening of the bid-ask spreads than the prior quarter, particularly for higher quality assets and resilient sectors, such as industrial and logistics and the U.S. multifamily.
Turning to our 2021 Capital Markets outlook.
Our pipeline is reasonably consistent with our 2020 Capital Markets geographic fee revenue mix, and is well distributed across sectors.
We see a high degree of resilience in residential, and industrial and logistics, which are expected to continue that momentum in 2021.
Our pipeline coupled with improving liquidity in the market gives us confidence in generating growth in Capital Markets fee revenue in 2021.
The renewed lockdowns and economic uncertainty do present headwinds, particularly for the first half of the year.
Consolidated leasing fee revenue declined 28% compared with the prior year quarter, a slight improvement from the 30% decline in the third quarter as clients continue to delay significant decisions regarding future real estate strategies.
Our investments in the higher growth asset classes of industrial, supply chain, life sciences and data centers continue to provide partial offset to ongoing softness in the office sector.
Looking at the Leasing market environment, global activity continued to modestly recover from mid-year lows, driven mostly by smaller transactions.
Global office leasing volumes declined 43% in the fourth quarter compared with the 46% decline in the third quarter.
In the U.S. office market shorter terms and renewals have been preferred by occupiers.
In offices across major U.S. cities, we saw continued declines in net effective rents, which may eventually spur activity.
Our U.S. gross leasing pipeline has improved from mid-year lows and is up 5% year-over-year, though we emphasize closing rates and timing remain highly uncertain.
Based on our leasing pipeline and our overall view of the market, we expect leasing activity to remain tempered in the first half of the year before gradually starting to recover in the back half of the year.
Property and Facility Management remains a growth area, driven largely by new business wins and contract expansions in the Americas as corporate occupiers and investors seek our services due to increased building management standards.
Our Corporate Solutions business fee revenue declined 7% in the quarter, a strong growth in Americas Facility Management was more than offset by ongoing headwinds in our project and development services and U.K. mobile engineering businesses.
We continue to be encouraged by the secular outsourcing trend, especially as clients increasingly seek our sustainability consulting services.
LaSalle's quarterly and full-year comparisons were impacted by outsized incentive and transaction fees in 2019.
Advisory fees were resilient for the full year within a backdrop of continued capital raising.
Coming off a record $8 billion of capital raised in 2019, LaSalle raised $6.1 billion in 2020 demonstrating that capital continues to flow to investment managers with proven track records.
LaSalle's assets under management grew about $3 billion from the prior quarter to $69 billion.
For 2021, we anticipate around $25 million of incentive fees with very little in the first quarter.
Now, I'll provide some details around our cost mitigation actions.
Consistent with my statements on the third quarter call, we expect $135 million of annualized fixed cost savings from actions taken in 2020.
It is important to note that we see opportunities in the current environment and we will continue to invest for growth.
For the full year 2020, non-permanent cost savings totaled about $330 million, including about $85 million in the fourth quarter.
Major items that benefited our full-year profitability included approximately $250 million of cost mitigation savings in T&E, marketing and other expense areas and $80 million of government COVID relief programs.
Just under half of the $330 million of savings will not be repeated in 2021, as they represent finite actions, including government programs and temporary reductions to compensation and benefits.
The remainder of the non-permanent savings in 2020 are likely to return gradually as business volumes recover, and will often precede the revenue generation, for example, marketing expenses.
Considering our cost saving initiatives, business mix and growth initiatives, we expect to operate within our 14% to 16% long-term adjusted EBITDA margin target range in 2021 and the years ahead.
However, due to timing of expenses and the length of the sales cycle, particularly in the more transactional businesses, we expect adjusted EBITDA growth to lag fee revenue growth this year.
As we gain more visibility into the trajectory of the recovery as the year unfolds, we will provide more details on our 2021 expectations.
Shifting now to an update on our balance sheet and our thoughts on capital structure and efficiency.
The sequential improvement in earnings, our enhanced focus on improving asset efficiency and modest capex and investment spending allowed us to reduce net debt by $560 million in the quarter, which ended the year at $192 million.
At the end of December, reported leverage was 0.2 times, down from 0.8 times at the end of September and we had $3.3 billion of liquidity, including full availability of our $2.7 billion revolving credit facility.
As Christian mentioned, we are targeting reported net leverage ratio of 0.5 to 1.25 times over the long term, though there may be variances due to operational seasonality as well as timing of business reinvestment, M&A and share repurchases.
We are very focused on continuing to improve our capital efficiency, which was a key factor in our strong cash generation and debt reduction in the quarter and full year despite the operating environment.
Looking ahead to the full year 2021, we are encouraged by our pipelines and the momentum in our business and anticipate our business will grow this year.
However, the seasonality of our business and the recent renewed lockdowns across the world, create considerable uncertainty across the entire industry, making it premature to provide fee revenue and profitability targets for the year at this time.
We currently anticipate progressive improvement in the second half of the year, but much will depend on the evolution of the pandemic, the pace of vaccinations and economic activity globally.
Long-term, we remain focused on achieving our 2025 beyond targets, we have a steadfast commitment to meeting the evolving needs of our clients, people and broader community.
This coupled with our constant efforts to improve both, our operating and capital efficiency, positions us to improve our returns and free cash flow, consequently, generating significant stakeholder value in the years ahead.
Back to Christian for further remarks.
With the distribution of vaccines, the general sentiment supports a meaningful recovery in 2021, with some analysts forecasting global economic growth in excess of 5%, much of it coming in the second half of the year.
Our people are committed to aligning with our clients' objectives and providing advice about how to navigate the transitions ahead.
As corporate occupiers begin to reimagine the future of work, they will rely on best-in-class firms like JLL to help them with this transition.
Additionally, we will be working closely with our investor clients and leverage the firm's broader perspective to provide necessary insights.
As we enter 2021, we remain focused on achieving our long-term priorities.
Though we are mindful of the near-term challenges and uncertainty that remains, we are poised to seize the considerable opportunities in front of us while maintaining financial discipline, important to long-term sustainable growth.
In summary, I'm pleased with the way that JLL was able to navigate through such turbulent and trying times of the past year.
Results that we were able to achieve would not have been possible without the commitment and relentlessness of our employees as well as the resilience of the communities within which we operate.
At JLL, we are committed to our stated purpose of shaping the future of real estate for a better world.
We are cognizant of the important role that we play in today's challenging and evolving environment, we are well positioned to deliver on our purpose through JLL's thought leadership, the strong growth in our sustainability services and our ability to bring to market differentiating technology products.
I'm confident in our ability to generate long-term profitable sustained growth and shareholder value.
Operator, please explain the Q&A process.

user
compname reports qtrly adjusted earnings per share $5.29.
q4 revenue $4.8 billion.
qtrly adjusted earnings per share $5.29.
cash provided by operating activities was a record $1,114.7 million in 2020, compared with $483.8 million in 2019.
no amounts drawn on credit facility as of december 31, 2020.

assistant