Moelis & Company Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Moelis & Company EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.53
• Consensus EPS: $0.32
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.21
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.18

Moelis & Company Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $365.38 million
• Expected Revenue: $269.57 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$95.80 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +38.10%

Moelis & Company Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 7/24/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, July 24, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Moelis & Co. operates as a holding company. It engages in the provision of financial advisory, capital raising and asset management services to a client base including corporations, governments, sovereign wealth funds and financial sponsors. The firm focuses on clients including large public multinational corporations, middle market private companies, financial sponsors, entrepreneurs and governments. The company was founded by Kenneth David Moelis, Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Jeffrey Raich and Elizabeth Ann Crain in July 2007 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

Moelis & Company Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: The firm reported record second-quarter revenues of $365 million, up 38% year-over-year, and first-half revenues of $672 million, up 39%, driven by growth in M&A and capital markets.
• Positive Sentiment: Management highlighted a significantly improved transaction environment since early April, with sponsor reengagement across industries and a near-record deal pipeline entering the second half.
• Positive Sentiment: Three leading private capital advisory bankers joined in Q2, underscoring the firm’s ambition to build a premier PCA platform and aggressively scale secondary and primary capital solutions.
• Positive Sentiment: The company maintains a strong balance sheet with $475 million in cash and liquid investments, no debt, and declared a $0.65 per-share quarterly dividend.
• Neutral Sentiment: A leadership transition was announced as Navin Mabuzadigan will succeed Ken Moelis as CEO, focusing on client intensity, talent development, innovation, and shareholder returns.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Moelis and Company Earnings Conference Call for the Second Quarter of twenty twenty five. To begin, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Matt Suklaf. Please go ahead, sir.

[Matt Tsukroff, VP - IR at Moelis & Company]

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for Molson Company's second quarter twenty twenty five financial results conference call. On the phone today are Ken Mollis, Chairman and CEO Navin Mabuzadigan, Co Founder and Co President and Chris Kallisano, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to note that the remarks made on this call may contain certain forward looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those identified from time to time in the Risk Factors section of Molson Company's filings with the SEC. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated. The firm undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statements.

[Matt Tsukroff, VP - IR at Moelis & Company]

Our comments today include references to certain adjusted financial measures. We believe these measures when presented together with comparable GAAP measures are useful to investors to compare our results across several periods and to better understand our operating results. The reconciliation of these adjusted financial measures with the relevant GAAP financial information and other information required by Reg G is provided in the firm's earnings release, which can be found on our Investor Relations website at investors.moles.com. I'll now turn the

[Chris Callesano, CFO at Moelis & Company]

call over to Chris to discuss our results. Thanks, Matt, and good afternoon, everyone. On today's call, I will go through our financial results, Ken will comment further on the business and Naved will provide a few remarks before we open the call for Q and A. We reported $365,000,000 of revenues in the second quarter, an increase of 38% versus the prior year period and our highest second quarter revenues on record. Our first half revenues of $672,000,000 were up 39% from the prior year period.

[Chris Callesano, CFO at Moelis & Company]

The year over year increase in revenues in both the second quarter and first half of the year is primarily attributable to growth in M and A and capital markets. Moving to expenses. Our second quarter compensation expense ratio was accrued at 69% consistent with last quarter. Our second quarter non compensation expense ratio was 14.4%. We continue to anticipate the full year growth of non compensation expense to be approximately 15% compared with the prior year.

[Chris Callesano, CFO at Moelis & Company]

Moving to taxes. Our corporate tax rate was accrued at 29.5% consistent with the underlying tax rate in Q1 prior to the discrete tax benefit related to the vesting of equity awards. Regarding capital allocation, the Board declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.65 per share consistent with the prior period. And lastly, we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with cash and liquid investments of $475,000,000 and no debt. I will now turn the call over to Ken.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. Our revenues in the second quarter and first half of the year reflect the investments we've made over the last few years, our globally integrated platform and our team's relentless focus on executing for our clients. We entered the second half of the year in a significantly improved transaction environment since we last spoke in April, which was right in the heart of the post Liberation Day market chaos. In retrospect, Liberation Day did cause a temporary disruption activity. However, our new business origination remained healthy and our pipeline currently sits near record levels.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Both our strategic and sponsor clients are moving forward with transactions driven by technology disruption and the need for sponsors to recycle capital. The investments we've made in capital markets have continued to pay off as well as our team achieved record revenues in the first half of the year. The team enters the second half of the year with strong momentum as investor risk appetite grows and capital is generally available. During the second quarter, three of our of the leading private capital advisory bankers joined our firm, underscoring our ambition to build the premier platform in secondary and primary capital solutions for sponsors. We continue to believe there is a significant opportunity for us to grow this franchise and we plan to aggressively scale into a market leader.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Finally, our capital structure advisory team continues to work on a steady amount of liability management engagements across a range of industries and our investments in our creditor side franchise are beginning to show results. In addition to our hiring in PCA, we welcomed one technology focused and one business services MD, both based in Europe during the second quarter. In summary, we entered the back half of the year with momentum across the business, and I'm confident in our team's ability to execute for our clients. Before I pass it to Navin, I'd like to make a few remarks about our upcoming CEO transition. With the firm in such a strong position financially, strategically and culturally, the Board and I determined this was the right time to elevate our next generation of leadership.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Naved founded the firm with me eighteen years ago and has been a key driver of our most impactful growth initiative and was one of the best strategic advisors I've ever worked with, making him well positioned to lead us through the next phase of growth as CEO. In my role as Executive Chairman, I'll spend even more time with clients and in boardrooms around the world advising on critical strategic decisions, while also remaining involved in the firm's long term strategy. And although I am excited to spend more time with our clients, I'll certainly miss my time with you on these quarterly earnings calls. I know you've been hearing my voice for a long time. I know you'll be in good hands with Naved when he gets the mic at our quarter three earnings call.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

So with that, I'll pass it to Naved for a few more remarks.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

Thanks so much, Ken. I'm honored step into the role of CEO at a firm that I've had the privilege of building and helping to build from the very beginning. As CEO, I will continue to focus on the principles that have been key to our success over the past eighteen years: intense focus on clients, investing in our firm's talent, fostering innovation through the adoption of new ideas and technologies and, of course, driving returns for our shareholders. We head into the next phase of growth with the highest quality talent and most extensive capabilities for clients in our history. I'm extremely excited about the opportunities ahead and look forward to working with more with all of you in my new role.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

Operator, I think you can now open it up for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take our first question today from Devin Ryan, Citizens JMP.

[Devin Ryan, Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP]

Thanks. Hi, Ken. Hi, Chris. Hi, Naved. First off, welcome and congratulations on the new role and to you as well, Ken.

[Devin Ryan, Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP]

Always enjoy the calls, but looking forward to Naved being on as well.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

Thank you.

[Devin Ryan, Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP]

I guess maybe just first place want to start is on sponsors reengaging and heard some of the prepared remarks, but just love to get a little more flavor around like the progression of reengagement and just maybe even from a sector perspective, are you seeing it across kind of all sectors? Obviously, areas like technology are still dealing with higher round. So are there certain sectors that maybe aren't coming back as fast? Just love to get a little bit of a flavor for kind of the level of reengagement and then what that looks like in different industries as well? Thanks.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Okay. So first, let's start with the macro, which was I think last time we did our phone call, we were in the middle of a pretty significant market downturn. And it wasn't just the market, you had real concerns about tariffs and how they would affect industry. Sometimes it's just valuation markets and interest rates, but that also had operational issues involved with what was going to happen. We probably reached our highest point of backlog on March 31, and then April 2 happened.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

And what I'd say happened is deals that were in pipeline and in progress kept going. But I think from about April 2 to five or six weeks later, May, there were a lot of people sitting on their hands. Transactions were getting done, but not a lot of things got started. Then it started back gradually, but I'd say it's really accelerated in the past five or six weeks. I think we've seen a better market every week starting four or five weeks ago.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

And I would say we're kind of back as of now very close to the level of enthusiasm that was prior to April. Now it's building back. You did have a few weeks there, so the pipeline is not at all time highs, but it feels like the energy is there. On the sectors, I think it's pretty much across the board. I mean, there may be one or again, I don't see every transaction in every industry across the board, so I'm talking about our subset.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

But I'd say we're pretty strong across sectors. Yes. Devin, I

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

think there's still some sectors that are right in the sweet spot of some of the trade uncertainty, maybe some of the parts of consumer, parts of industrials manufacturing. But as Ken said, I think the strength we're seeing is more broad than narrow.

[Devin Ryan, Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP]

Yes. Okay. That's good to hear. And then just for my follow-up, want to hit on the private capital advisory business and opportunity. I know you guys have made some senior additions there and you highlighted that in the script.

[Devin Ryan, Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP]

Just love to get a sense of how big of an addressable market you think that specific business is. I know it's important for just the firm level, but just how you think about the addressable market? How big of a business could this be for Moelis? It's pretty big at some of your peers, but is this a couple of $100,000,000 revenue opportunity? And then just how many more resources do you need to put there to get this business to where you think the potential is?

[Devin Ryan, Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP]

Do you have now what you need? Or should we expect to see a lot more additions kind of follow after some of these senior hires? Thanks.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Well, I agree with you. We see it as a in a leadership position, it's a couple of $100,000,000 or more, more than a couple of 100,000,000, we think, in the leadership positions. We think we've hired the leadership that we feel very comfortable will get us to that position. We have more to hire throughout the system, and we're going to be aggressive on it. We have gone aggressively and we didn't hire just one of the top players in the industry, we hired three.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

We think this is could be very strong. By the way, it's a couple of $100,000,000 to the top of the market right now or more than as I said, it might be more than that. I think it is more than that. And I think we're in the early stages of it being a growth market. So we're pretty bullish on it.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

We think of it as a think of it as a third you or fourth leg on the firm in terms of where we think the size of that market could be.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

And it's also I should add, it's also in addition to just the direct revenue opportunity that Ken outlined. It's having that capability in secondaries, continuation vehicles is just very strategic for dialogues with private equity firms and ability to provide holistic solutions for those firms. It not only creates revenue opportunity, but it also helps our M and A business. And so it's just a capability. It's just critical for us to scale and be very, very strong at, which we're well on the way to doing, we think.

[Devin Ryan, Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP]

Yes. I appreciate that. Yes, seems very complementary. But thanks for taking my questions.

[Operator]

Next up is Ken Worthington from JPMorgan.

[Kenneth Worthington, Financial Analyst at JP Morgan]

Hi, good afternoon. Naved, thank you for your comments on your priorities. Ken mentioned that you're here to kind of usher in the next phase of growth for Moelis. What does this next phase of growth look like? What would you see your focus, really being?

[Kenneth Worthington, Financial Analyst at JP Morgan]

Where are you paying attention, most thoughtfully to? And what areas do you feel like you want to amplify as you think about this next phase of growth?

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

Sure. Well, look, I think the first comment is the strategy that we've been playing for the last couple of years very much is the strategy that we've all been developing together that I expect to continue to carry on. So what are the elements of that? First, let's make sure that our investments are made in the highest TAMs, the biggest TAMs, where we have the most opportunity to really drive revenue growth. That's why we did things like invest heavily in technology group, oil and gas and now PCA and before that, markets.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

So we're going to continue to look for those big opportunities. Second, we want to make sure that we're attracting when we do lateral hiring, what I call difference makers, elite players who really move the needle with clients, bring franchises that we think are really accretive to our firm and to our global network. And making sure we're doing that and executing that at the really highest levels is going to be critical our success. And then third, which is a really important pillar that helped build this firm, is making sure that we continue to have the best culture. One, where everyone's collaborating and kind of bringing the best of themselves to our clients, and then making sure that this internal talent development engine that we're really proud of, where 40% of our MDs are internally promoted MDs, including some of our highest producers, that that engine continues to operate at a very high level.

[Kenneth Worthington, Financial Analyst at JP Morgan]

Thank you. And I think you and Ken both talked about the economy being in possibly the next leg of a strong period of growth. Do you increase the pace of investment and increase the pace of new hiring from what you have seen more recently? Or is it really about kind of leveraging the elevated pace of investments that you've really been focused on over the last two years and sort of letting things kind of play out? Like which sort of scenario is more likely for you to pursue over the next one to two years? Accelerate or slow down?

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

I think overall it might feel about the same space. We're going to accelerate into things like PCA. So you're going to see us be very aggressive in the private capital advisory group. But Naved I'll say this, Naved was the major force behind the tech group hire, and that's been nothing but extremely successful. I'll just leave it at that.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

The energy group we hired down in Houston has been a spectacular success. We've industrials. So I think you'll see it about the same level. It'll be very aggressive in certain areas like as we go to finish out our private capital group. And you'll continue to see the same pace, I think, of managing directors in white spaces around the organization.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

But it'll probably it might feel pretty aggressive just because of what we're going to do in PCA, I think.

[Chris Callesano, CFO at Moelis & Company]

I think the only thing I would add to that is, look,

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

we're not growing for the sake of just growing and adding headcount. We want to make sure we're hiring the best people in the world to help us build these franchises. And sometimes that's not market specific. It can happen in a down market where there's those people become available like with technology and it can happen in an upmarket. And think what we've done is make sure we have the financial resources, clean balance sheet to make sure we can do it under all environments, right?

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

And so I think we want to lean into growth. As I said, big TAMs, great people. And sometimes that will happen in up markets and sometimes it will happen when the markets don't feel great. And that's why we keep the flexibility to do that.

[Kenneth Worthington, Financial Analyst at JP Morgan]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question today comes from James Yarrow, Goldman Sachs.

[James Yaro, VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Thanks for taking the questions. I guess it's a question for both of you. But there's a lot of focus, I'd say, the market is the market around this, I don't know what we want to call it, a big bang of M and A and IPO activity that could occur post Labor Day. What do you make of that of the post Labor Day outlook? And do you really think things could come back that quickly in a big way?

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Things are definitely coming back. I mean, it was interesting. The June remember, a lot of deals there were no deals really started between April 2 and a certain day. There was lot of people sitting on their hands. So when you look at your new business activity, and I apologize for the fire engine going right by the window.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

But so then you saw those were the deals that would have started in April that would have registered in our due business activity sometime in late May, early June. But what we're seeing is every week within June just gets stronger and stronger and stronger as you get further and further away from Liberation Day. So look, the S and P 500 is getting close to 6,400. I mean, that's not just a rebound from Liberation Day. That is a significant uptick.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

We haven't seen rates come down yet. I don't we're not I'm not predicting a big bang, but I am predicting that if there's not an external event from here on in, the market is improving almost daily. And the activity level and the amount of transactions people want to do is definitely improving, and you can see it almost daily. So again, I don't see a big bang, but I see a really steadily improving market.

[James Yaro, VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Ken, I will say that one of the reasons I know you're an excellent banker is that even though there's that loud fire truck there, you were still able to fill in those comments. So we appreciate that. And obviously, we'll miss you on the call.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

I was just making sure it wasn't an ambulance coming to me. That was the only thing that would have disturbed the whole thing.

[James Yaro, VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Exactly. Undisturbed, unperturbed. Okay, great. Just one last follow-up here. So look, you're investing a lot into the private capital advisory and that's growing fast right now.

[James Yaro, VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Maybe could you just help us think through the guardrails around the build out as we head towards the environment that's potentially more characterized by regular way M and A and IPO, which I could imagine could at least slow the growth rate in secondaries?

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

I think the guardrails is we were very excited and we've now gotten to spend on the ground time with the three most senior leadership team. And we like them. We think they're real business builders. And remember, we're not sitting with 200 people in the space yet. We have a desire to get there if the market is as good as we think there is.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

We have a desire to have a large team and be a dominant player. But I think there we'll all be watching that. I think it's a product that will find a way to be relevant. And as Naved said, and I think you have to show up when talking about the assets that are in private equity and in sponsor ownership, you have to be able to offer a series of different alternatives. And that in many of the spots, that will be an alternative that will be relevant.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

It may not be the one picked, but it's important that you be able to execute it in order to outline to people what their options are and effectively position it. So I think we will follow their lead. And right now, we're not overcapitalized or over peopled in that space at all. So I'm not worried about it getting slower. I'm worried about us getting up to speed is my main worry right now that we hire the people and the team to execute.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

And again, I'm an optimist on this. I think that product will be large. And it will be bigger over the years. Yes.

[James Yaro, VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Great. All right. Well, thanks so much, Ken. It's been great working with you, and thank you so much for the insights. And Naved, looking forward to work with you.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Same here.

[Operator]

Your next question today is from Brendan O'Brien from Wolfe Research.

[Brendan O'Brien, SVP at Wolfe Research]

Afternoon and thanks for taking my question. Just to start, you mentioned the strength in capital markets and advisory driving the growth year to date. However, I just wanted to drill down a bit on restructuring activity and just to get a sense as to how that has trended since April 2 and what your expectations are for that part of the business from here?

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

For this year, it's trended flattish to slightly down. My guess is it continues to trend slightly down. And I think part of it by the way is you're seeing the other side of that and the benefits in our capital markets and our M and A. So what happens in a really good market when the S and P 500 gets to $60,036,400 And private capital has just a tidal wave of liquidity coming into private credit is that the marginal company that would go through a liability management or a restructuring gets purchased in an M and A deal or refinanced. So I think we've always tried to put our capital markets kind of together with our restructuring business in the numbers because I do think it's sort of a choice.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

And I always say this, almost every CEO, I every CFO I know would rather do a financing than a restructuring. And so given the opportunity and the availability of capital, I think some of it, that marginal amount that in a bad market would be reported as a restructuring or liability management revenues now moving into capital markets or even M and A.

[Brendan O'Brien, SVP at Wolfe Research]

Helpful color. And then I guess for my follow-up, I just wanted to touch on the comp ratio. You've had a really strong first half and it sounds like momentum should build from here. However, as you mentioned, you've been aggressively and will continue to aggressively lean into recruiting as you build out the PCA business and your deferred comp amortization is up over 40% year on year in 1Q. While I understand the investment will pay off over time, I just want to get a sense as to how we should think about your ability to flex your comp ratio as the revenue backdrop begins to improve.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

I think we're going to have the flexibility and it's all top line driven. And as I said, the growth that I think we have embedded in the firm through all those investments we made is pretty substantial. We didn't change it. I don't think that a quarter was enough evidence to go trying to change it on a moment by moment basis. I think you get caught sort of jumping around a little too much.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

So we decided to leave the comp ratio where it is. We are hoping that the year continues to build out the way it is. We've got a lot of time left. We just didn't think the evidence of a quarter was enough to really try to fine tune it right now. We'll do that in the back half of the year.

[Brendan O'Brien, SVP at Wolfe Research]

That's helpful. Thank you for taking my questions. Congrats, Naved, on the new role. And Ken, congrats on the new role as well. You'll be missed.

[Kenneth Worthington, Financial Analyst at JP Morgan]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Your next question today comes from Ryan Kenny from Morgan Stanley.

[Ryan Kenny, MD - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just a follow-up there on the comp ratio. Is there a formula we should think about for the rest of the year? I know last year we had a formula and it was unclear whether that still applies for this year. Any update there?

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

No. Joe's left and I'm no longer stuck with Joe's formula. Not kidding. The formula worked beautifully last year because we were coming off of a very different environment. And this year, there's no formula.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

I think it's going to be driven by top line. We have these investments. We have a great set of people on the ground. And I think it's going to be a derivative of how much we're able to drive on the top line.

[Ryan Kenny, MD - Equity Research at Morgan Stanley]

All right. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Alex Bond from KBW.

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

Hey, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, know we've talked you've talked today on the call extensively about the build out on the PCA team. But just curious if there are any other or what other areas outside of there where you are particularly focused on hiring currently?

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

Look, we there are other spaces and sectors where I think we could add great talent. I don't know that I want to be super specific on this call, but I would say we do have an active set of dialogues with candidates that we think could be great on the platform. And I do think one of the things we want to do is continue build those pipelines and that's a full year round effort and making sure we're having the right dialogues with the right people around other spaces. There's still despite our growth and despite investments we made, there's still lots of areas and lots of companies we're not covering and lots of spaces where we have franchises that can be built. And so as I said, we want to focus on the great people and want to focus on the biggest opportunities.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

And that's where we're constantly having dialogue with with people who can potentially join the firm.

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

Got it. That makes sense. And then apologies if I missed this earlier, but, what was the breakout between advisory revenues and or sorry, non M and A revenues versus M and A revenues this quarter? Was it consistent with the, I think, two thirds M and A and one third M and A split last quarter?

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Pretty dead on, very close to that. Yes, might be a percentage point or higher on M and A, but not much. It's right around there.

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

Got it. Okay, great. Thank you for taking the questions.

[Operator]

The next question is Jim Mitchell from Seaport Global Securities.

[James Mitchell, Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities]

Sorry, I was on mute. Hey, good afternoon. Ken, I find it hard to believe you're going to miss these conference calls, but appreciate the sentiment. But I just want to have I had a follow-up on PCA.

[James Mitchell, Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities]

When you think about that business, the nature of the business as well as Molus' historically strong relationships with sponsors, would you expect the new hires in that business to ramp up more quickly than your typical M and A banker? Just trying to think through the payback time on the PCA investment.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

The answer is yes. And first of all, I think we're now interacting with them for six, seven or eight weeks together. And I think they've been surprised or positively surprised at how strong our dialogue is with their core customer. We're very often both of us are finding it like the match has been what we hoped it would be. And the answer is yes, because what's happening is there may be a sector banker that was going in to talk about an asset that a client had next week.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

And we can walk right in and push the PCA expertise right into the pitch and talk about it as part of the dialogue much more rapidly than you would say, okay, let's say you hired a new sector banker, they sort of have to go reestablish communication with the client, land a transaction.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

So I think I do think they can be productive quicker because they are being asked to show up in dialogues we're having with sponsors that have been ongoing real time before they hit the ground. They're just being slotted right in and providing new expertise and new options. So yes, it can be.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

Just to elaborate a little further, the three senior bankers that we've hired really focus on continuation vehicles and secondaries.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

And as Ken said, that's a much quicker M and A like kind of time to market. The primary business, which is another part of the PCA business that we'll hope to build over time, is a much longer lead time kind of business.

[Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President at Moelis & Company]

But the businesses we're focused on first, a, I think are the biggest market opportunities for us and b, to your question, I think are their ability to make an impact more quickly, I think, is much more realistic.

[James Mitchell, Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities]

Right. Okay. Yes, that's very helpful. And then maybe pivot to balance sheet and cash. I you know, I don't wanna put the cart before the horse, but I think cash and liquid investments doubled from a year ago and the highest second quarter, I think, on record.

[James Mitchell, Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities]

So if the environment's getting better from here, are you getting close any closer to starting to return any of that excess cash to shareholders? And how do you think about deploying it if we are getting close?

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Yes. I think we are. We recognize that we are probably have more excess capital than we want or need and we're in discussions with the Board on that and it'll be a variety of ways. But I do think stock repurchase will probably play more prominently in that than it has in the past where we were concerned about shrinking our float. We're not that concerned about that anymore.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

So let's just put it, we're looking at a variety of ways and we want to get capital back and we realize we probably have more capital than we need.

[James Mitchell, Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global Securities]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Operator]

And at this time, are no further questions. That does conclude today's conference. We would like to thank you all for your participation today. You may now disconnect.

[Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman at Moelis & Company]

Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• Matt Tsukroff, VP - IR
• Chris Callesano, CFO
• Kenneth Moelis, Founder, CEO & Chairman
• Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Co-Founder & Co-President

Analysts

• Devin Ryan, Director of Financial Technology Research at Citizen JMP
• Kenneth Worthington, Financial Analyst at JP Morgan
• James Yaro, VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs
• Brendan O'Brien, SVP at Wolfe Research
• 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