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Commitments and Contingencies

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2019

Commitments And Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

10.	Commitments and Contingencies

We are a party to a number of pending or threatened lawsuits arising out of, or incident to, our ordinary course of business. We believe that any losses in excess of the amounts accrued therefore as liabilities on our financial statements are unlikely to be significant, but litigation is inherently uncertain and there is the potential for a material adverse effect on our financial statements if one or more matters are resolved in a particular period in an amount materially in excess of what we anticipated.

In January 2008, CBRE MCI, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CBRE Capital Markets, entered into an agreement with Fannie Mae under Fannie Mae’s Delegated Underwriting and Servicing Lender Program (DUS Program), to provide financing for multifamily housing with five or more units. Under the DUS Program, CBRE MCI originates, underwrites, closes and services loans without prior approval by Fannie Mae, and typically, is subject to sharing up to one-third of any losses on loans originated under the DUS Program. CBRE MCI has funded loans subject to such loss sharing arrangements with unpaid principal balances of $25.9 billion at June 30, 2019. CBRE MCI, under its agreement with Fannie Mae, must post cash reserves or other acceptable collateral under formulas established by Fannie Mae to provide for sufficient capital in the event losses occur. As of June 30, 2019 and December 31, 2018, CBRE MCI had a $67.0 million and a $64.0 million, respectively, letter of credit under this reserve arrangement, and had recorded a liability of approximately $41.8 million and $37.9 million, respectively, for its loan loss guarantee obligation under such arrangement. Fannie Mae’s recourse under the DUS Program is limited to the assets of CBRE MCI, which assets totaled approximately $748.9 million (including $485.7 million of warehouse receivables, a substantial majority of which are pledged against warehouse lines of credit and are therefore not available to Fannie Mae) at June 30, 2019.

CBRE Capital Markets participates in Freddie Mac’s Multifamily Small Balance Loan (SBL) Program. Under the SBL program, CBRE Capital Markets has certain repurchase and loss reimbursement obligations. These obligations are for the period from origination of the loan to the securitization date. CBRE Capital Markets must post a cash reserve or other acceptable collateral to provide for sufficient capital in the event the obligations are triggered. As of both June 30, 2019 and December 31, 2018, CBRE Capital Markets had posted a $5.0 million letter of credit under this reserve arrangement.

We had outstanding letters of credit totaling $78.3 million as of June 30, 2019, excluding letters of credit for which we have outstanding liabilities already accrued on our consolidated balance sheet related to our subsidiaries’ outstanding reserves for claims under certain insurance programs as well as letters of credit related to operating leases. The CBRE Capital Markets letters of credit totaling $72.0 million as of June 30, 2019 referred to in the preceding paragraphs represented the majority of the $78.3 million outstanding letters of credit as of such date. The remaining letters of credit are primarily executed by us in the ordinary course of business and expire at varying dates through June 2020.

We had guarantees totaling $58.4 million as of June 30, 2019, excluding guarantees related to pension liabilities, consolidated indebtedness and other obligations for which we have outstanding liabilities already accrued on our consolidated balance sheet, and excluding guarantees related to operating leases. The $58.4 million primarily represents guarantees executed by us in the ordinary course of business, including various guarantees of management and vendor contracts in our operations overseas, which expire at the end of each of the respective agreements.

In addition, as of June 30, 2019, we had issued numerous non-recourse carveout, completion and budget guarantees relating to development projects for the benefit of third parties. These guarantees are commonplace in our industry and are made by us in the ordinary course of our Real Estate Investments business. Non-recourse carveout guarantees generally require that our project-entity borrower not commit specified improper acts, with us potentially liable for all or a portion of such entity’s indebtedness or other damages suffered by the lender if those acts occur. Completion and budget guarantees generally require us to complete construction of the relevant project within a specified timeframe and/or within a specified budget, with us potentially being liable for costs to complete in excess of such timeframe or budget. However, we generally use “guaranteed maximum price” contracts with reputable, bondable general contractors with respect to projects for which we provide these guarantees. These contracts are intended to pass the risk to such contractors. While there can be no assurance, we do not expect to incur any material losses under these guarantees.

An important part of the strategy for our Real Estate Investments business involves investing our capital in certain real estate investments with our clients. These co-investments generally total up to 2.0% of the equity in a particular fund. As of June 30, 2019, we had aggregate commitments of $73.0 million to fund these future co-investments. Additionally, an important part of our Real Estate Investments business strategy is to invest in unconsolidated real estate subsidiaries as a principal (in most cases co-investing with our clients). As of June 30, 2019, we had committed to fund $48.5 million of additional capital to these unconsolidated subsidiaries.