Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Okay we have first have question from the line of Anthony Paolone with JP Morgan.
Anthony Paolone - JP Morgan
Thank you and good morning. A number of reports out there have shown just a pickup in activity both transaction and in leasing totally a pretty strong June. Do you think that is something that you expect to continue, did you think that was maybe some pent up demand from activity being so dried up earlier in the year?
Brett White
Anthony this is Brett. And frankly, I wouldn't characterize June as a strong month and I wouldn't characterize the market place has haven't seen any particularly strong activity in the back portion of the second quarter.
I do know and this maybe answer what you were referring to, I do know that in New York, which is a valuable market. There was a sense that transaction activity, leasing activity picked up a bit in the second quarter.
But, I would say that globally or perhaps more importantly to our investors, the larger markets around the world, the leasing business remains very much depressed and more abound and the sales market is just in a very-very similar condition as it was in the first quarter.
Anthony Paolone - JP Morgan
Okay that's helpful. In terms of your margins, your gross margin, it picked up from the first quarter but it still seems a bit on the low side. Why is that?
Brett White
Bob?
Bob Sulentic
Well, first of all, Anthony if you -- the thing I'd recall your attention to is our year-over-year EBITDA margin which went up by almost a full point. Reflective of normal job of controlling cost but also reflective of the fact that we've kept our platform intact and we are generating revenues in all of our business lines around the system. And in particular, our outsourcing business has, which is our most stable base of revenue has grown to be 42% of the business in the second quarter. So we, while we certainly would love the return to the days of new double digit margins. We're not in those days now.
Revenues are off, as we reported by 27 %. So what we're trying to do is extract the best possible margins from those depressed revenues and frankly we're satisfied with the margins we generate in this environment.
Brett White
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
