Jones Lang LaSalle opens Mexican office.

Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated today announced that it has expanded its Mexico operations with the opening of a new, full-service office in Monterrey. Services include property and facility management, project and development management, tenant representation, agency leasing, valuations, consulting and capital markets expertise. Javier Llaca, Vice President, 36, heads the firm's second Mexico office, which serves clients across Northern Mexico and the U.S. -- Mexico border regions. Mr. Llaca reports to Pedro Azcue, Managing Director and head of Jones Lang LaSalle's Mexico operations.

"The time was right to open a full-service office to serve our growing client base in the 'Industrial Capital of Latin America,"' said Earl Webb, Chief Executive Officer of Jones Lang LaSalle, Americas. "Monterrey is also a major gateway to the U.S.-Mexico commercial exchange corridor and was recently named by Fortune magazine as the best city for business in Latin America."

Last year, Monterrey's metro area contributed nearly 10 percent of Mexico's Gross Domestic Product with less than 4 percent or 3.8 million of Mexico's total population. "In 2000, construction of new corporate space grew 20 percent with multi-national companies like Terra Networks/Lycos, Principal Financial Group and International/Navistar establishing their regional headquarters in the city," said Mr. Azcue. "Another example illustrating Monterrey's growth is our construction management assignment to build a new Internet switching center for Avantel, one of Mexico's largest long distance companies jointly owned by WorldCom and Banamex, one of Mexico's largest banks."

Including Llaca, the Monterrey office currently has eight full-time employees and expects to hire at least four more this year. The team has both local and national experience, serving clients such as IBM, Sun Micro-systems MCI WorldCom, Citibank, J D Edwards, Prologis, General Motors, U-Calli, Alestra (a long distance carrier owned among others by AT&T), and Grupo Alfa.

Over the last decade Mr. Llaca, who joined the firm January 1, has played a major role in many real estate service-related projects and transactions on behalf of clients Throughout Northern Mexico. Prior to joining Jones Lang LaSalle, he was Managing Director for CB Richard Ellis' Northern Mexico region in Monterrey and before that was Director of their Mexico City operations.

He has a B.S. in Engineering from The University of Miami and an Engineering Degree in Electronics and Communications from The Tec de Monterrey in Mexico City. He is a member of the Border Trade Alliance and the American Chamber of Commerce.