JLL (JLL) Acquires Kensington Capital Advisors

JLL (NYSE: JLL) today announced it has wholly acquired Kensington Capital Advisors (KCA), a North Carolina-based derivatives and structured finance advisory firm. The acquisition includes Frame Financial Systems (Frame), a technology platform that will enable JLL to offer CRE investor clients a proprietary "software with a service" ("SwaS") debt portfolio reporting and analytics solution.

"The acquisition of KCA and Frame expands the global derivatives advisory capabilities and end-to-end capital solutions we offer to our clients," said Richard Bloxam, CEO of Capital Markets, JLL. "Combining KCA's strategic advisory capabilities and Frame technology with our market-leading experts in Debt Advisory across the world and our global platform is going to create real value for our clients."

Since 2004, KCA has served as an independent financial advisory firm specializing in the analysis, structuring and execution of derivative products and structured financing solutions. Americas Capital Markets CEO, Mark Gibson, said, "When JLL acquired HFF in July 2019, it also acquired HFF's 50% ownership of Kensington Capital Advisors. After three successful years of working closely with the Kensington team, the Kensington and JLL teams believe the consolidation of Kensington into the JLL Platform will greatly enhance both the services we can provide to our clients in a volatile "cost of capital" climate and the profitability of the JLL enterprise."

KCA and Frame's 23 employees will join the Capital Markets and JLL Technologies teams, and the technology product will be offered as a SwaS solution for investor clients looking to manage their corporate real estate debt portfolios more effectively.

"The Frame platform is a strong addition to JLL's best-of-breed tech portfolio for CRE investors," said Amit Koren, chief product officer for JLL Technologies. "Debt portfolio management is a critical need for our clients and one that is most effectively addressed by the integration of expert advisory services and purpose-built software. This approach is what differentiates JLL and we see tremendous opportunity to accelerate the growth and impact of Frame."

"Joining forces with JLL helps us realise our vision to expand the reach of our world-class SwaS product to real estate investors," said Jim Moore, Principal and founder of Kensington Capital Advisors. "The services we offer clients to identify, quantify and mitigate risk are already in strong demand during this volatile interest rate environment. With the global reach of JLL, we will be able to better serve our clients and broaden our real estate hedging and derivatives advisory services."

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