MW Wall Street buys into Newmark Group's AI data-center prospects as stock rallies

By Steve Gelsi

Real-estate company sees brighter future for data centers and return-to-office efforts

Newmark Group Inc.'s stock on Friday notched its biggest one-day gain in more than a year, with investors snapping up shares of the commercial real-estate services company as it talked up its prospects for artificial-intelligence data centers and electric-power development.

The company's stock (NMRK) was up about 8.7% in afternoon trading for its best performance since it rose 12.4% on Nov. 14, 2023.

Any clouds over Newmark related to office-space exposure seem to be parting, as it issued an adjusted 2026 profit estimate ahead of analyst estimates and said it's seeing opportunities as more workers return to the office.

Rather than weighing on its fourth-quarter results, Newmark said office-leasing revenue saw double-digit growth, as part of an overall 15.1% increase in overall leasing revenue during the fourth quarter.

"The good news is that people are coming back to the office," Newmark Chief Executive Barry Gosin told Wall Street analysts, according to a transcript. "The good news is people realize that ... there is a productivity decline when people don't show up. ... Anecdotes around that are moving in the right direction."

Newmark is also expected to benefit from a combination of reshoring of chip manufacturing and other industries under President Donald Trump, he said.

"The new administration investing heavily in infrastructure and the advent of artificial intelligence makes the future like incredibly bright for that particular industry," Gosin said.

Newmark sees an opportunity to provide land for power projects, as well as financing and finding tenants.

"We're in an incredible position to take advantage of that and capture market share in that space," Gosin said. "We're doing a significant amount of business in that space."

Newmark said it expects adjusted 2026 earnings of $1.75 a share, well ahead of the FactSet consensus analyst estimate of $1.59 a share.

For full-year 2025, it expects adjusted earnings of $1.40 a share and $1.50 a share, with the midpoint of $1.45 a share ahead of the analyst estimate of $1.41 a share.

For the fourth quarter, Newmark reported earnings of 55 cents a share, well ahead of the analyst estimate of 48 cents a share. Fourth-quarter revenue of $888.3 million topped the analyst expectation of $790.8 million by a wide margin.

Including Friday's gains, Newmark's stock is up 17.3% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 SPX has risen by 4.1%.

Also read: Intel's stock is on a hot streak. Here's why the rally could continue.

-Steve Gelsi

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 14, 2025 14:18 ET (19:18 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.