Lazard Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 24, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Firm-wide adjusted net revenue rose 12% year-over-year to $770 million in Q2, driving first-half revenue to $1.4 billion with record results in Financial Advisory.
  • Positive Sentiment: Asset Management net inflows turned positive in Q2 with record gross inflows, contributing to a 10% year-to-date AUM increase to $248 billion.
  • Positive Sentiment: Compensation expense ratio improved to 65.5% (from 66%) and non-comp ratio fell to 20.4%, while the firm continues targeted investments in talent and ETF capabilities.
  • Negative Sentiment: Adjusted effective tax rate rose to 36.5% in Q2 (from 14% a year ago), pressuring EPS, though full-year 2025 guidance targets the mid-20% range.
  • Positive Sentiment: The outlook is optimistic as M&A activity is expected to improve with tailwinds from AI, energy transition and private equity, supported by 14 new MD hires and the launch of the first US active ETFs.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Lazard Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Alexandra Deignan
Alexandra Deignan
MD, Head of Treasury, IR & Corporate Sustainability at Lazard

There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance, achievements or other events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward looking statements, including, but not limited to, those factors discussed in the company's SEC filings, which you can access on our website. Lazard assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of these forward looking statements and assumes no duty to update them. Today's discussion also includes certain non GAAP financial measures that we believe are meaningful when evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of these non GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP measures is provided in our earnings release and investor presentation.

Alexandra Deignan
Alexandra Deignan
MD, Head of Treasury, IR & Corporate Sustainability at Lazard

Hosting our call today are Peter Orzag, Lazard's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman and Mary Anne Bech, Lazard's Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, Peter and Mary Anne will be joined by Evan Russo, Chief Executive Officer of Asset Management as they open the call for questions. Now I'll turn the call over to Peter.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Thank you, Allie, and good morning to everyone joining today's call. We are pleased to report strong performance and results with total firm wide adjusted net revenue of $1,400,000,000 for the first half of the year. Financial Advisory achieved a record first half of the year with adjusted net revenue of $861,000,000 Advisory revenue this year has demonstrated the geographic and product diversity of our business. Results represent the overall strength of Lazard's team and brand, which includes record revenue in France and Germany for the first half of the year.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Our performance reflects a global business that also extends well beyond our long standing strength in strategic M and A with expanded connectivity to private capital and record revenue in our fundraising business year to date. Over the past twelve months, revenue associated with private capital has been over 40% of total financial advisory revenue, reflecting our increased emphasis on this business and hiring over time. Asset Management continued to deliver solid results with adjusted net revenue of $533,000,000 for the first half of the year. As we had previously stated, we see this year as an inflection point for our Asset Management business. The second quarter reflects solid progress towards our goal of more balanced flows with positive net flows in the quarter, record gross inflows for the first half of the year and AUM increasing 10% year to date.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

This progress is a result of strong investment performance, efforts to better focus our sales and distribution on core products and strategies and more favorable market conditions for our global strategies. Our success in driving positive net inflows has been achieved while also continuing to win new mandates. And as a result, our current one but not yet funded mandates total is even higher than the elevated level at the beginning of the year. Overall, we continue to see robust client engagement across both of our businesses as corporate and investment leaders move beyond the watchful waiting mindset of the previous quarter and grow more comfortable making decisions in the current environment. I'll share more on our outlook shortly, but first let me turn the call over to Mary Anne to provide further details on the quarter's results.

Mary Ann Betsch
Mary Ann Betsch
CFO at Lazard

Thank you, Peter. Today, we reported second quarter firm wide adjusted net revenue of $770,000,000 up 12% from the same time last year. Increase in firm wide revenue was driven by our Financial Advisory business. Financial Advisory adjusted net revenue was a record $491,000,000 for the second quarter, up 20% from one year ago. Our banking teams performed well across the firm with Lazard participating in a number of marquee transactions during the second quarter.

Mary Ann Betsch
Mary Ann Betsch
CFO at Lazard

Completed transactions include CD and R's acquisition of a controlling 50% stake in Sanofi's consumer health unit and Rocat Freres acquisition of IFF Pharma Solutions. In addition, recently announced transactions include Ferrero International's agreement to acquire W. K. Kellogg, Assure's recommended combination with Primary Health Properties and L'Oreal's agreement to acquire Color Wow. In addition, corporate restructuring assignments include company roles with Solo Brands and Wilbur Ellis and creditor roles involving Franchise Group, Saks Global and Southern Water.

Mary Ann Betsch
Mary Ann Betsch
CFO at Lazard

We also engaged in several private equity assignments, including advising XL KKR, Hidden Harbor Partners and IDG Capital on continuation funds, advising Main Sale Partners on the closing of its Fund VII and advising on capital structure and executing debt raises for ZF Friedrichshafen, Next Wind and iFit Health and Fitness. Turning to asset management for the second quarter, adjusted net revenue was $268,000,000 up one percent compared to the second quarter last year and up 2% on a sequential basis. Management fees for the second quarter increased 1% compared to the second quarter last year with lower average AUM more than offset by higher average fees. Average AUM for the second quarter of $239,000,000,000 was 3% lower than the 2024 and up 3% on a sequential basis. As of June 30, we reported AUM of $248,000,000,000 2% higher than June 2024 and nine percent higher than March 2025.

Mary Ann Betsch
Mary Ann Betsch
CFO at Lazard

During the quarter, we had market appreciation of $11,900,000,000 foreign exchange appreciation of $8,400,000,000 and net inflows of $700,000,000 We see ongoing client engagement across our investment platforms, particularly with our global, international, emerging markets and quantitative strategies. Illustrative examples of new mandates include $1,000,000,000 from a U. S. Public pension into Global Equity Advantage, $650,000,000 win from a Nordic client for Japanese equities, 600,000,000 from a Korean institution into emerging markets equities and $500,000,000 into international quality growth from a large U. S.

Mary Ann Betsch
Mary Ann Betsch
CFO at Lazard

Retirement provider. Now turning to expenses. For the second quarter of twenty twenty five, our adjusted compensation expense was $5.00 $4,000,000 resulting in a ratio of 65.5% compared to 66% for the second quarter one year ago. Our adjusted non compensation expense for the second quarter was $157,000,000 equating to a ratio of 20.4% compared to 21.7% for the second quarter last year. While remaining focused on expense management, we continue to invest in the business to support our long term growth, including successful recruiting efforts to expand our team of financial advisory managing directors and the build out of our ETF business in asset management.

Mary Ann Betsch
Mary Ann Betsch
CFO at Lazard

Shifting to taxes, our adjusted effective tax rate for the second quarter was 36.5% compared to 14% for the second quarter of twenty twenty four. We currently expect our full year 2025 effective tax rate to be in the mid-twenty percent range. Turning to capital allocation. In the second quarter of twenty twenty five, we've returned $60,000,000 to shareholders including a quarterly dividend of 47,000,000 In addition, yesterday, we declared a quarterly dividend of $0.50 per share. Now I'll turn the call back to Peter.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Thank you, Mary Anne. With regards to the M and A outlook, progress will not be linear, but as long as outstanding tariff issues are resolved in line with expectations over the coming weeks, we see a significantly improving environment for financial advisory activity. Dialogue with corporate strategics continues to broaden, corporate balance sheets are strong and clients are adapting to shifting trade policies. Financing markets are also generally constructive despite the risks surrounding heightened unpredictability.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Technology and generative AI, the energy transition, the biotech revolution and shifts in global supply chains remain underlying tailwinds that further support client activity. Looking ahead, we anticipate that private equity will play an increasingly active role in M and A. Lazari is well positioned to benefit reflecting our ongoing investments in our private capital coverage efforts. Client engagement remains robust across our global offices with notable activity in fundraising and liability management supported by our ability to deliver innovative solutions across both public and private markets. Finally, our talent pipeline continues to grow with senior bankers attracted to our strong culture, global presence and the momentum behind our long term growth strategy.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

We've hired 14 financial advisory managing directors so far in 2025 and we remain on track this year to achieve or even exceed our 2030 objective of expanding our team of financial advisories by 10 to 15 net per year. Recent talent additions in our consumer and retail, healthcare and power and energy power energy and infrastructure groups are already supporting our performance and resulting client business. Overall, an improving environment along with our expanded connectivity to private capital, our continued progress in hiring and Lazard's unique ability to pair business advice with geopolitical insights all support ongoing business momentum in our advisory business. Turning to asset management, our increased focus and accountability within sales and distribution, enhancements to our investment platform and the addition of new talent over the past couple of years are delivering results with record gross inflows in the first half of the year. We anticipate our business to benefit further if investor preference continues to evolve outside of The United States given our extensive offerings in global, international and emerging market strategies.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

As I mentioned earlier, even with robust gross inflows year to date, successful sales efforts continued to replenish our one but not yet funded mandate. During the second quarter, we also successfully launched our first active ETF product set in The U. S, which includes our Japanese equity, equity megatrends, next gen technologies and international dynamic equity ETFs with additional ETFs planned for launch later this year. Progress over time towards our long term goals is supported by our ability to deliver Lazard's premier strategies in new modalities that meet client demand. Beyond product development, we are focused on generating alpha by leveraging leading market and research insights.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

To advance this effort, last month we announced that Eric Van Nostrand has joined Lazard Asset Management as Global Head of Markets and Chief Economist. Across the firm, our focus on helping clients navigate a complex economic and geopolitical landscape has resulted in another strong quarter and first half of the year. We continue to execute against our Lazard 2030 plan with our geographic and product diversification and firm wide momentum positioning us well for a more constructive business environment. Now we'll open the call to questions.

Operator

We'll take our first question from Devin Ryan with Citizens JMP. Line is open. Please go ahead.

Devin Ryan
Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP

Great. Good morning. How's everyone?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

It's great. Thanks.

Devin Ryan
Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP

Good. I want to come back to some of the commentary just on the advisory outlook and good to hear about the growth in mandates from the beginning of the year. Just want to get maybe a little bit just more texture around the trajectory of recovering that you're seeing in the business and just whether we're back to maybe the same level of enthusiasm is where the year started. It seems like we maybe lost a month or two of the actual year. But are we kind of back on track here?

Devin Ryan
Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP

Or is there still some lingering uncertainty on topics like tariffs that are still weighing on sentiment in pockets and so you would characterize this maybe not quite as robust as you were hoping coming into the year?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Three comments. The first is before we get to the M and A market, which is what I think you're fundamentally asking about, I just want to emphasize again the efforts that we have been making to diversify our business model on the advisory side. And so we're now at a business mix that's roughly 60% M and A and 40% non M and A. And I think that will continue to evolve over time as we continue to build out additional products and services that we can offer to clients beyond our long standing excellence in strategic M and A. So that's the first point.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Second point is, I don't I never thought that what I'll call the Davos consensus at the beginning of the year was realistic. It was probably a bit too frothy even at the moment. So that's just an aside on the expectations at the beginning of the year. But then third, what I would say is now I do think we're in an increasingly constructive environment. Let me just unpack why we see it that way.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

All along, there are very strong underlying kind of tectonic plate type drivers of M and A activity, especially innovation and technology, increasing returns to scale in many businesses and then some of the other themes that I mentioned earlier. So those persist as big strong tailwinds. We have gone through a period where there have been various different headwinds that have at least mitigated some of that. Partly it had to do with tariff uncertainty at the April. And as I mentioned, as long I think that uncertainty has come in, we do need to see that get finalized and get commemorated in deals with important trading partners as opposed to still a little bit of uncertainty about exactly how it will settle.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

We could talk more about that. But I think that's more likely than not to land in a place that is consistent with what the market is currently expecting. So that the most pronounced part of that headwind could be put to the side. The second question involves the regulatory environment. Again, think at the beginning of the year, the consensus was probably a little too wildly optimistic that there would be no regulatory reviews and anything goes.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

That was never going to be the case. I think we always had a pretty realistic view that antitrust environment for example would be more accommodating, but not infinitely more accommodating than previously. And I think that is how it's playing out. We did for example see a significant acceleration in the average time to close on M and A deals in the second quarter as one example of a leading indicator on potential changes in that regulatory environment that we believe will be ongoing. And then third is the financing situation, financing markets.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Those have generally been improving. The IPO market is still not fully open, but the rest of the financing markets, think we've seen material improvements over the past, let's call it several months. And so you put all of that together and combine it with the fact that a lot of Boards and C suites want to respond to those underlying drivers that I mentioned at the beginning by doing something and inorganic activity is often a very attractive thing to do. And so we're just seeing what I can report is we're seeing an acceleration in dialogue and the willingness of Boards and C suites to kind of say, the world may be a bit more uncertain than it was at some time in the past, but we've got to look through that and act anyway. So, final comment I'll say is, obviously we have a very strong presence both here in The United States and in Europe.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

This quarter in the first half of the year, we saw a bit more of an uptick in European activity. That may get balanced as we go through the year by an expansion in U. S. Activity. Most of the comments I was just referring I think tilted a bit towards The U. S. M and A market.

Devin Ryan
Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP

Thanks, Peter. Excellent color. Appreciate it. And maybe just to switch gears to the asset management business and touch on the net inflows, which we're good to see. It sounds like a combination of both product and distribution, and you've made some good moves on establishing the right products.

Devin Ryan
Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP

But on distribution specifically, can you just talk a little bit more functionally some of the things you've put in place to accelerate distribution momentum? What's working there? What changes have been made? And then just interconnected question, just how that unfunded mandate backlog has trended just after the really nice June there, if there's any order of magnitude you can give there on how that's backfilling? Thank you.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Sure. So on the second question, what I said was that it is higher than the elevated level at the beginning of the year. We have not we're not going to get the habit of providing a regular numerical update, but we did provide that you can take that number and I just said it was higher than that. And that's a really encouraging thing to see because it suggests that the progress that we're making on flows is not eating into the feedstock if you will of future flows, but instead it suggests changes that we're seeing in terms of how we're operating and what our clients are looking for that should be more sustainable. With regard to what we've been doing, I'd say two things.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

One is there were changes in the sales and distribution teams both in The United States and globally, that were made over the past couple of years. Sometimes it takes people time to kind of get up the ramp in terms of effectiveness and getting used to a new platform. I think we're seeing that occur, A. And then B, I mentioned more clarity and accountability. There was an exercise towards the end of last year and at the beginning of this year to set goals for the teams in terms of at a very specific product and strategy level against very specific clients, what the sales and distribution goals would look like and we've been attentive to making sure that we're hitting those goals and it's paying off.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

And so that's what I meant by more clarity and accountability. And the final thing I'd say is we talked earlier in the year about, some of the very strong investment performance that we have accomplished, and the excellent investment teams that we have. And what we are seeing is within those flows is a shift towards net inflows in many of the areas where we've seen excellent investment performance. So emerging market equity, global equity, quantitative equity, Japanese equity as being some of the examples. And so it's not just that there's net inflows, but those net inflows are occurring towards many of the investment products and strategies where we've seen excellent performance is the first point.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

And the second point is most of that what's occurred to date is not in fact the vast bulk of what has occurred to date has not really reflected this ongoing investor sentiment shift away from U. S. Equity in particular. So if that were to continue and I think there are probably reasons that it's likely to continue, that will be a further boost to the asset management business.

Devin Ryan
Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP

Perfect. Really helpful. Thanks so much.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Ryan Kinney with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Ryan Kenny
Ryan Kenny
MD - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley

Hi, good morning.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Morning.

Ryan Kenny
Ryan Kenny
MD - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley

Just want to square the comments on significantly improving advisory outlook. There's been some upbeat commentary, and the comp ratio is flat sequentially at 65.5%. So any thoughts around timing to hit your goal comp ratio of 60% or below?

Ryan Kenny
Ryan Kenny
MD - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley

And with deal conditions quickly improving, can you get there sooner rather than later?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Sure. So a couple of comments. First, I said significantly improving, I also said it won't be linear. We are very cautious about the quarter to quarter fluctuations, which always happen in this business because many of the transactions are lumpy and things can move in and out, etcetera. So we are we held our comp ratio flat this quarter because we think that's the best and most conservative thing to do.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Where the comp ratio actually lands will depend not only on the market and our performance against that market, but also on the hiring front. I mentioned that we will be at or potentially above the 2,030 average target that we have of 10 to 15 net MDs The reason we're doing that obviously is because we think that there will be additional revenue and productivity that comes from those hires and those investments. Over time, we're really excited about the quality of the people that we're attracting, but that will obviously also influence the comp ratio. And then with regard to the when we can get back to the 60% that is our goal.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

It's going to depend on market conditions along with our performance. I'm not going to give you a specific timetable for that other than to say it remains our goal and I think it's pretty clear where we want to land. The parts that we can control involve making sure for example that we are raising productivity, which affects the comp ratio because it's where a lot of the operating leverage on the financial advisory side comes from, given the roughly fixed costs associated with the non MDs as you raise MD productivity that has a significant benefit in terms of the non MD comp pool at least relative to the revenue. Making sure that we're hiring the right people and we're very pleased about that and then, making sure that we are being very conscious of the trade offs in terms of compensation versus returns to our shareholders. So, more to come on all of that, but it's still early in the year and we're going to have to see it all plays out.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

We are seeing an increasingly constructive environment, but seeing it and experiencing it are two different things.

Ryan Kenny
Ryan Kenny
MD - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley

And on the non MDP, do you think about associate headcount? Are you right sized to handle the volume coming your way? Or do you see yourself doing more hiring there?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

I think we are in a good place with regard to our non MD ranks. We actually have had an increase in the so called TAE, the total associate equivalent ratio to each MD over the past year or two. So we've capacity to meet I want to overstate the case because our people obviously work hard, but we do have capacity to meet an increasingly constructive environment.

Ryan Kenny
Ryan Kenny
MD - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Alex Bond with KBW. Please go ahead.

Alex Bond
Senior Research Analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Great. Thank you. Good morning and thank you for taking the questions. So just wanted to start on the M and A backdrop in Europe as it relates to The U. S.

Alex Bond
Senior Research Analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

And just curious if you could provide a little bit more color as to your feeling relating to sentiment in terms of the difference between what we're seeing in Europe and The U. S. Currently. It looks like EU announcements at the industry level didn't rebound to the same degree in May, June as they did in The U. S.

Alex Bond
Senior Research Analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

So just curious as to what you're hearing in the market currently?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Sure. Well, first let me just start by saying one of the benefits of the increasingly diversified business model we have is that we can kind of skater surf to where the opportunities are in the first half of the year. That was a bit disproportionate in Europe. I think that's great that we have a long established and preeminent practice there. Most of the European activity that we're seeing is not I may have misinterpreted your question, but it's not Europe U.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

S. Activity, it's Europe Europe or Europe somewhere in the rest of the world. There's also significant non M and A activity out of Europe that is relevant also. I would note before I turn to other dimensions of this that we're also doing a significant amount of hiring in Europe. So we just added a senior financial sponsors coverage person in The UK.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

We have we are expanding to a new office in Northern Europe. We have made other hires in London to do insurance coverage and so on. We're going to continue we have a fantastic new debt advisory team in Germany that adds to the strength of our German team. So a lot of diversified, but very highly talented people being added to our platform in Europe. With regard to where things settle for the rest of the year, which is I think the other part of your question, The U.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

S. Activity is coming back to what I said in terms of increasingly constructive environment. Do think that in the back half of this year, that's where you're going to probably see a disproportionate pickup relative to at least our experience year to date based on the dialogue that we're engaged with and where we're seeing new activity. But we also expect continued high levels of activity out of Europe. Mean just overnight, we had the successful defense of Banco PPM against the takeover attempt from UniCredit, where we were advising Banco PPM.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

There's ongoing activity in Europe in addition to The U. S.

Alex Bond
Senior Research Analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Great. No, that's helpful color. And then maybe as a follow-up, to quickly go back to the hiring pipeline. You've announced a strong number of senior hires here year to date and you touched on this briefly earlier. But curious as to if you've seen any shift in the market there as we've seen activity rebound over the last couple of months and I guess just broadly on your outlook for hiring through year end here?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

I don't know which way you were expecting the shift to occur, but I would just say that we are doing we have been doing extremely well in our lateral recruiting efforts. I'm very pleased with effort that Ray Maguire, our President has been spearheading in this arena. We've been the quality of the people that we're attracting is very high. And we are winning bake offs where bankers considering X or Y us against a competitor. We're pleased with our win rate there without while paying competitively, but not overpaying for the talent that we're attracting.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

And I think that's because of a couple of structural features around Lazard that are attractive, not only the brand and our reputation for excellent content, but the vibrating energy that a lot of people can feel about our renewed ambition towards our Lazard 2030 goals, the strong culture that we have, I talk about a commercial and collegial culture that's absolutely key to it, attracting top talent. And the fact that we've got not only stability in our leadership and a clear strategy, but also a significant footprint that's been well established and longstanding in both North America and Europe, which is very important in many, many sectors. So we're very pleased with how we're doing in a competitive labor market.

Alex Bond
Senior Research Analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you, Peter.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Jim Mitchell with Seaport Global Securities.

James Mitchell
James Mitchell
Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities

Hey, good morning. Maybe Peter, you just getting back to the flow picture in Asset Management, record gross flows, great to eke out some net inflows, but still obviously implying some pretty high gross outflows. You talked a little bit about not seeing the benefits of the shift in the environment. What is holding people back? Why is there still relatively high attrition if the environment for non U.

James Mitchell
James Mitchell
Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities

S. Equities is getting better and likely to continue to do so? It just seems like at least attrition should slow.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Yes. I'd say a couple of things and then maybe Evan can add a bit. Look, I'd say a few things. First, there always are growth inflows and growth outflows. It's not that there are outflows, people's investor investment preferences shift, there's natural churn in the marketplace, that's all to be expected.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

The point of highlighting the record gross inflows is we've got lots of very attractive products and strategies for which there is significant demand even before there is the added benefit, if you will, for us of ongoing of this investor preference shift. So that's point one. Point two is with regards to the timetables, because our business is disproportionately institutional, these things can often move at a slightly slower pace because processes around making institutional investment decisions. There's not this is not a very high frequency kind of thing. And so it's natural to see some lags involved.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

But I would highlight that one of the reasons why and there may have been some skepticism among this group on the call at the beginning of the year when I highlighted that we did view this year as an inflection point and that we had a stretch goal of flat flows for the year. I think there was a ton of skepticism, but what we could see from our discussions with institutional clients was a shift occurring. We anticipated ongoing outflows from some of the sub advised accounts that have been occurring. That is part of the picture. And I'd note the net inflow in the second quarter was despite a very substantial outflow from a sub advised account.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

So there's a shift towards those other products and strategies that I was talking about global quantitative Japan, etcetera, and a bit away from The U. S. Sub advised. But that was part of what we anticipated. But we could see based on the dialogue that we were having with clients, a shift in terms of what they were looking to us to provide.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

And that's exactly what has been occurring. So we set out some ambitious objectives for the sales team, for the business as a whole. And I think we are making making very, very solid progress towards doing that. And I appreciate some of the skepticism earlier in the year because it only motivates performance even more. And we're very pleased with the progress that we're making.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

And I think it is a significant step in the right direction to see the positive net flows. But it's not altogether shocking to us because we could see it earlier in the year before we shared some of those comments with you. Evan, do you want to add anything?

Evan Russo
Evan Russo
Chief Executive Officer of Asset Management at Lazard

Yes, sure. I think you summarized it well. I think the only thing I'd add Jim is, look, we're seeing broad based success in our new flows. So it's really broadly defined across channels. So whether it's institutional or intermediary, it's across geographies.

Evan Russo
Evan Russo
Chief Executive Officer of Asset Management at Lazard

So we're seeing tremendous success in Asia Pacific clientele looking to put new capital to work as well as in Europe and as well as across products. It's not just one single product, as Peter pointed out earlier. So it's across global equities and international products as well, Japan, quant and even some in the emerging markets. So in terms of how the reallocation, the shifting is happening, I mean, as Peter said, institutional trends take some more time. So it's still early.

Evan Russo
Evan Russo
Chief Executive Officer of Asset Management at Lazard

We're starting to see some of the early adopters, but there are definitely more green shoots in early adopters, and we're seeing definitely more interest across that reallocation trade that we've been talking about for a little bit. That started with some of the client discussions and early adopters, as we said at the end of last year, leading into this year, and that trend continues. So, so far, I think the momentum clearly, we're trending better than past years and calling out sort of the record gross flows for the first half of the year shows the momentum we're having bringing new clients as well as new mandates, bringing new mandates to the product set that we have.

James Mitchell
James Mitchell
Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities

Okay. That's great color. I apologize for the what have you done for me lately question. Maybe just a follow-up on AI. Peter, you've been I think more vocal than your peers on the potential for AI in your business.

James Mitchell
James Mitchell
Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities

Can you kind of talk about you see as the benefits and what progress you may already be seeing in terms of efficiency?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Yes. Look, I think the next couple of years are going to be transformational for both of our businesses. The technology this is as I look back, I'll be approaching two years in the seat in October. As I look back to how things are gone, which is generally very, very well. I'm very pleased with the progress.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

One of the surprises has been that we anticipated AI would be advancing, but it's advanced even more rapidly than I had anticipated. That's both with regard to the tools that we have sitting inside of our firewall, that we are using to improve what we can do for clients and also improve the experience for our people. But it's also I think all of us in our own lives outside of Lazard business, you can just see the remarkable advances that are occurring in many of these tools that are commercially available. With regard to what we're doing, I think there's sort of basically four different parts to the way that we're thinking about AI. One is that we want to be at the absolute forefront of the technologies, so to be at the cutting edge of what's available to our bankers, to our investment professionals on the asset side.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

So that's kind of Tier one and we've spoken about some of the tools that we have available to our bankers. We're going to continue to explore ways of the boundaries ever expanding in terms of what's possible. The second is, which I think is really important is the cultural shift. So actually just welcomed our new analysts and I talked about being the anti QWERTY generation by which I mean if you look at your keyboard, it's QWERTY in terms of the letters. The reason they're aligned that way is because early typewriters did not have a QWERTY keyboard, people were typing too quickly.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

And so the QWERTY keyboard was literally designed to slow people down so the keys would not get stuck and yet we still have the QWERTY keyboard because of the overwhelming power of inertia. And so, our incoming analysts and associates are motivated to be, bilingual in the old way of doing things and then the new way of doing things so that we break the QWERTY chain of just continuing to do things the same way even if it's inefficient, even if it obviously doesn't make any sense anymore to worry about keys the keys getting stuck, except I guess if you spill something on your keyboard. The third thing is whether the degree to which we can digitize the knowledge and information that exists inside the walls of Lazard. There's amazing insight that's walking around in people's brains. The more that we can digitize that, the more that the tools will have something to work with.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

And then the final thing, which is perhaps surprising or ironic or doesn't quite fit the mold is we firmly believe that as the technology improves, the importance of human relationships of deep client connectivity will only expand not decline. So that involves more convening, more detailed discussions with clients that those trusted relationships are even more important in an AI enabled world than ever. So lots of different activities going on here. And I am personally very excited about the opportunity to again, I think this will be transformational for both of our businesses and we're very, very much focused on it.

James Mitchell
James Mitchell
Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities

Great. Thanks.

Operator

We'll take our next question from James Yarrow with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

James Yaro
James Yaro
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

Thanks for taking the questions. Good morning. So you mentioned, Peter, that private equity will comprise an increasing portion of M and A, recently strategic M and A has outperformed sponsor M and A again this year. Could you just help us think through when the frequently and much hyped sponsor recovery will take off?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Sure. Before I do that, let me just again note that we now are as I mentioned I think in the prepared remarks, over 40% of our advisory revenue is coming from private capital. So even while the M and A piece of that world has been, a little subdued, We have so many other touch points with private capital from fundraising to restructuring liability management to our Lazard Capital Solutions team and so on, our fundraising business obviously that we are seeing a significant increase in revenue associated with private capital even while the M and A channel part of that has been a bit subdued. So that's point one. Point two is the reason that we think there will be a pickup in M and A activity from this sector is that it's just been several years now in which LPs have had relatively low cash distributions lower than expected, lower than they expected.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

So the pressure continues to mount. In the meanwhile, that pressure has helped to create an acceleration of our secondaries business within our PCA fundraising business. But nonetheless, it is still a significantly rising kind of pressure environment. And the reason that there hasn't been more cash distributions from the M and A channel is because of some of those headwinds that I mentioned before, but those are generally resolving. Maybe not quite yet fully with regard to the IPO market, But the regulatory environment, I think it's clarifying the tariff environment is we hope clarifying and we expect that it will.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

So many of the things that have been kind of impeding M and A activity from private equity are resolving themselves. And then you layer on top of that excuse me, something stuck in my throat. Layer on top of that the pressure from LPs and that's why we think that the environment will shift.

James Yaro
James Yaro
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

Okay, excellent. That's very, very clear. Just two quick asset management questions here. Firstly, to clarify a previous point you made, are you now committing to net zero flows? And I guess how should we think about this over an annual basis or some other period?

James Yaro
James Yaro
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

Secondly, could you just speak to the impact of recent in flows on the asset management fee rate and the mix shift away from sub advised mandates should we expect the fee rate to potentially tick down from this quarter's level and just how to think about the cadence? I know there's a lot there.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Sure. First, I don't know exactly what you mean by committing to, but we had said that flat flows was a stretch goal at the beginning of the year. I think it's still within reach and as a stretch goal for the year as a whole. We will see how it plays out. But at the very least, the flow picture is significantly improved relative to 2024 despite some of the skepticism when we initially put out that stretch goal.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

So I will just reinforce that we're focused less on well, we're focused on doing the things under the surface that lead to good outcomes and you're seeing some of that play through in the results year to date and in the second quarter. With regard to the fee rate, actually the fee rate increased very slightly quarter over quarter and increased a bit more year over year. The sub advised accounts as I mentioned earlier in the year, are a significant share of AUM, a notable share of AUM. They're pretty small share under 5% of our asset revenue in total, because they are large and therefore there is a natural negative relationship between the size of the mandate and the fee rate that from a single client, for example, that one obtains. So they're relatively low fee rate assets, which is why they're a much larger share of AUM than they are of revenue.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

So mechanically, just from that alone, you had a neutral overall flow and there was flow out of the sub advised and flow into other products, you should expect probably at least stability and maybe even an increase in the average fee rate as a result.

James Yaro
James Yaro
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

Excellent. Very clear. Just a quick last one on the non comp, good comp discipline in the quarter. Could you just speak to the non comp growth trajectory from here?

Mary Ann Betsch
Mary Ann Betsch
CFO at Lazard

Yes. I'll take that one, James. So I had previously said that I expected mid single digit increase in non comp on a dollar basis for the year. Since then, we've seen some upward pressure a couple of points from FX rates and then we've also seen business development trending up as well as continued investments in technology. So now I'd say probably expect more like high single digit for the year.

James Yaro
James Yaro
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

That's very clear. Thank you so much.

Operator

We'll take our last question from Brendan O'Brien with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Brendan O'Brien
Brendan O'Brien
SVP at Wolfe Research

Good morning and thanks for taking my questions. I guess to start, the commentary on the mix of the advisory line was helpful and insightful. So thank you for providing that. But I just wanted to get a sense as to how that mix compares today relative to last year. And within those non M and A businesses, how is the contribution from those different line items evolved?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

So I would say relative to last year, we have a slightly higher non M and A share. The mix is again roughly sixty-forty. There's a couple percentage point move not a massive, but a couple percentage point move relative to last year in that mix with the non M and A piece ticking up a bit and the M and A piece being a slightly smaller share of the total. Within the non M and A piece, we've seen a significant increase in restructuring and liability management, especially liability management, which is almost the entirety of it at this point. We also, as I mentioned, we had a record first half in our PCA business, which is our fundraising business, disproportionately in the secondary piece of that.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

The secondary piece of that will be roughly 60% or let's call it two thirds of the overall business, roughly speaking in that category. We also are seeing significant growth in our capital solutions group, which is great to see. So and I could keep going. There's a whole bunch of different pieces to this, but backing up, we have been building out more products and strategy more products and services for our clients to diversify the business. So at this point, we are increasingly well diversified geographically and we are well diversified across the products that we're offering to our clients.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

And that's just an advisory obviously. We also have the diversification that comes from having the asset business also.

Brendan O'Brien
Brendan O'Brien
SVP at Wolfe Research

That's helpful color. And just drilling down on the restructuring part of the business, in your comments around the M and A outlook, you indicated that conditions are improving, corporate balance sheets are strong, but obviously at the same time, it sounds like your liability management practice continues to see strong momentum. So just trying to square those two, like the push pull between those two businesses and how you expect restructuring and liability management activity to traject throughout the rest of this year and into next?

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

Yes. Look, what I'd say is even within a generally constructive environment, there always are companies that find themselves in trouble or sectors that find themselves more challenged. So it's not surprising that especially as we've moved towards more liability management and that is the I mean, that's the vast bulk of the activity at this point that these things can kind of coexist. Couple of other noteworthy features we've seen, one thing that we've done in this business, not only did we have a leadership transition a couple of years ago, but we increasingly diversified this business not only into liability management and away from just pure restructuring, but also to have a balance between creditors and debtors. I would say, I'm going to maybe get this not exactly right, but if you go back five or ten years, was probably 90% or more debtor based.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

And today, it's more like sixty-forty debtor creditor in that range. So I've been mentioning sixty-forty a lot. There are lots of different ways in which we're diversifying the business. Almost all of the sense that I mentioned sixty-forty, so that would be kind of M and A, non M and A, public company, private company, not exactly, but sort of U. S, Europe, now debtor creditor, as I mentioned, all of those have potential to move more towards fifty-fifty with lots of growth even in the 60% components.

Peter Orszag
CEO & Chairman at Lazard

So when I say move towards fifty-fifty that means a larger share of a larger pie, which is why we're really excited over the next few years to see lots of opportunity ahead for growth. And that's why we're out in the marketplace attracting new talent and high quality talent because we see so much opportunity.

Brendan O'Brien
Brendan O'Brien
SVP at Wolfe Research

Great color. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

This now concludes Lazard's second quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call.

Executives
    • Alexandra Deignan
      Alexandra Deignan
      MD, Head of Treasury, IR & Corporate Sustainability
    • Mary Ann Betsch
      Mary Ann Betsch
      CFO
    • Evan Russo
      Evan Russo
      Chief Executive Officer of Asset Management
Analysts
    • Peter Orszag
      CEO & Chairman at Lazard
    • Devin Ryan
      Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP
    • Ryan Kenny
      MD - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley
    • Alex Bond
      Senior Research Analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)
    • James Mitchell
      Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities
    • James Yaro
      VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs
    • Brendan O'Brien
      SVP at Wolfe Research
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