Jones Lang LaSalle Becomes JLL

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

When the topic of the top global commercial real estate services firms comes up, Jones Lang LaSalle is always on the list and now, JLL will be there in its place. Jones Lang LaSalle, which holds the No. 2 spot on Commercial Property Executive’s 2013 Index to the Most Powerful Brokerage Firms, has just begun using its acronym as its name, and will now be known simply as JLL. And there’s a redesigned JLL ‘Worldmark’ logo, to go with the new moniker.

What’s in a name? For JLL, it is representative of what the firm describes as a “natural evolution” of its brand as a multi-faceted global real estate services concern. But the motivation for the change goes even further.

“We’ve been considering the change to JLL for some time now,” Charles Doyle, chief marketing officer for JLL, told Commercial Property Executive. “A significant driver is the way we communicate on digital and mobile channels. The modern name works for apps, Twitter, the website, LinkedIn, on property signs, in print and on uniforms. It also is a more memorable and recognizable way to represent the global scope of our firm. We are located in 75 countries and speak a multitude of languages but we all operate under the JLL name now and into the future.”

Charles Doyle, JLL

The name change comes 15 years after real estate services company Jones Lang Wootton and LaSalle Partners came together in a massive merger to form Jones Lang LaSalle. The resulting firm held a management portfolio of approximately 650 million square feet and an investment services portfolio encompassing $20.3 billion of assets. Today, the newly renamed JLL provides management and real estate outsourcing services for a portfolio of 3 billion square feet, and in 2013, it closed $99 billion in sales, acquisitions and finance transactions.

The firm will continue to be legally identified as Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.; however, as the firm introduces the new name around the world over the next two years, the global real estate community will recognize it as JLL. As Doyle stated in a video distributed to JLL employees, “Our global brand will become more modern and more memorable.”