We recently compiled a list of the 10 Best Stocks to Buy According to John W. Rogers of Ariel Investments. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE:JLL) stands against John W. Rogers' other stock picks.

John W. Rogers Jr. is a prominent American investor and hedge fund manager who serves as the chairman, CEO, and CIO of Ariel Investments. Rogers graduated from Princeton University in 1980 and spent two and a half years as a stock broker at William Blair. Three years later, he founded Ariel Investments, the first Black-owned mutual fund company in the United States, with $200,000 supported by family and friends. Howard University would be Ariel Investments' initial customer, with the firm receiving $100,000 to manage its endowment. The next year, the city of Chicago granted Ariel $1 million to operate a pension plan. By 2009, Ariel Investments was managing $3.3 billion in assets, which has since increased to a staggering $12.9 billion.

Notably, the investor's flagship Ariel Fund's faced one of its first hurdles back on October 19, 1987, the day of the crash known as Black Monday. The next major test came after the dot-com crisis in 2000, with the Ariel Fund rebounding strongly, returning 29% that year and 14% in 2001. During the 2008 financial crisis, Rogers' investments in equities, such as real estate investment firm CBRE Group and newspaper publisher Gannett, caused the fund to lose 48% before returning 63% in 2009.

Rogers appreciates patience as he looks for companies that he believes will reach their full potential in a set period of years. This strategy of scooping up value stocks, pioneered by famed investors Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham, involves buying stocks whose worth may be undervalued by the market. Speaking on a Bloomberg Invest Conference, the investor stated that market enthusiasts might get overly focused on short-term trends, and those prepared to look three or five years ahead may still uncover opportunities.

Ariel Investments remains steadfast in its belief of value investing, even within the current market climate. This confidence in its strategy was reaffirmed in the fund's Q1 2025 Investor Letter. Here is what Ariel Fund had to say:

Most major U.S. indices ended the first quarter of 2025 in the red, with investors fleeing to safety as optimism for another year of U.S. outperformance driven by economic momentum and the new administration’s pro-business stance was quickly replaced by tariff fears and policy uncertainty. The Magnificent Seven, which drove most of the markets gains over the last three years, led the decline, falling nearly -15%. Value bested growth and large caps held up better than their small cap brethren. International equity markets, led by Europe and China, surged—delivering their strongest quarterly outperformance versus the U.S. in 15 years. Meanwhile, deteriorating confidence and apprehension about a global trade war is fueling recession fears. While Wall Street sits on edge and markets remain erratic, we are actively leaning into the volatility by judiciously acquiring the downtrodden shares of quality companies whose value should be realized over the long term.

Our Methodology

For this list, we picked stocks from Ariel Investments' 13F portfolio as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2024. These equities are also popular among elite hedge funds.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

A real estate broker discussing options with a customer using digital maps and virtual reality.

Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE:JLL)

Ariel Investments' Stake as of Q4: $268.3 million

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 48

Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE:JLL) is a multinational commercial real estate and investment management company that buys, builds, manages, and invests in properties across the world. The company offers a wide variety of real estate services, including leasing, property management, consultancy, and capital market services.

For Q4 2024, Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE:JLL)'s diluted earnings per share improved by $1.40 year-over-year to $4.97, while adjusted diluted EPS increased by $0.79 to $6.15. The quarter's revenue came in at $6.8 billion, a 16% increase in local currency, with Transactional revenues up 22% and Resilient revenues increasing 13%.

Back in March, Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE:JLL) announced its plan to purchase Javelin Capital, a North American renewable energy investment banking firm. The acquisition will strengthen JLL's U.S. Energy and Infrastructure Capital Markets capabilities, complementing its existing operations in Europe and Asia.

Vulcan Value Partners stated the following regarding Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE:JLL) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:

“We purchased one position during the quarter: Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (NYSE:JLL). Jones Lang LaSalle is one of the largest commercial real estate service providers in the world, serving both investors in and corporate occupiers of real estate. It provides leasing brokerage, M&A and investment advisory services, as well as property and project management services. To complement its core business, the company also owns LaSalle, one of the largest global real estate investment management businesses in the world. Jones Lang LaSalle is a secular grower in a consolidating industry, is broadly diversified by geography, asset class and line of service, and has an inherently variable cost structure that has allowed it to generate free cash flow in both good and bad times.”

Overall JLL ranks 3rd on our list of John W. Rogers' stock picks. While we acknowledge the potential for JLL as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%.  If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than JLL but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

 

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

 

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.