Followed by the number one on your touch tone phone. At any time. I will now turn to Katy Haber, managing director of investor relations and ESG at Evercore Inc. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Evercore Inc.'s fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results conference call. I'm Katy Haber, Evercore Inc.'s Head of Investor Relations and ESG. Joining me on the call today is John Weinberg, our chairman and CEO, and Tim LaLonde, our CFO. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing Evercore Inc.'s fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results. Our discussion of our results today is complementary to the press release, which is available on our website at evercore.com. This conference call is being webcast live in the For Investors section of our website, and an archive of it will be available for thirty days beginning approximately one hour after the conclusion of this call. During the course of this conference call, we may make a number of forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements that we make are subject to various risks and uncertainties, and there are important factors that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those indicated in the statements. These factors include but are not limited to those discussed in the filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and current reports on Form 8-K. I want to remind you that the company assumes no duty to update any forward-looking statements. Financial measures, which are non-GAAP measures that we believe are meaningful when evaluating the company's performance. For detailed disclosures on these measures and the GAAP reconciliations, you should refer to the financial data contained within our press release, which is posted on our website. We continue to believe that it is important to evaluate Evercore Inc.'s performance on an annual basis. As we've noted previously, our results for any particular quarter are influenced by the timing of transaction closings. I will now turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Katy, and good morning, everyone. 2024 marked a year of significant improvement across both the macroeconomic landscape and the broader capital markets. We saw strength across all of our businesses, and as a result, 2024 was Evercore Inc.'s second-best year ever for revenue with firm-wide adjusted net revenues of just over $3 billion. In the year, we also advised on three of the seven largest global M&A deals and continued to gain market share in terms of advisory fees. We have continued to intensively cover our clients while broadening our coverage across the entire platform. Over the past several years, we have meaningfully invested in the business, and we continue to broaden and deepen our products and capabilities. This has contributed to a significant diversification in our total revenue base. On average, over the past five years and in 2024, more than 40% of our total revenues were from non-M&A sources. We are pleased with the progress we've made in the past year. As we enter 2025, we are optimistic. Market trends continued to improve with increased CEO confidence levels, healthy sponsor dialogue activity, continued financing availability, and overall a strong macroeconomic backdrop. Our robust backlogs continue to strengthen, positioning us for what we believe will be a healthy environment in our advisory and capital markets businesses. While some geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties persist, we anticipate the deal-making environment will continue to gradually improve throughout the year, building on the momentum of the past twelve months. So far this year, we were lead financial adviser to Calpine on its sale to Constellation Energy for $29.1 billion, the largest announced deal to date. These activity levels reflect our strong client relationship, ongoing coverage efforts, and building client dialogues. Shifting to talent, 2024 was another successful recruiting year for Evercore…

Thank you, John. Our fourth quarter and full year financial results reflect the building momentum we experienced in 2024, with net revenues higher each quarter, both sequentially and year over year. As the market environment continues on its path to recovery, we remain committed to strategically investing in our growth and balancing that with responsible expense management and medium to long-term value creation for our shareholders. In 2024, we made meaningful progress on our adjusted comp and non-comp expense ratios, improving them by 190 basis points and more than 90 basis points, respectively. This has resulted in a 280 basis point improvement in our adjusted operating margin versus 2023. As I have discussed throughout the past year, we are focused on making further improvement on our margins, and we expect this to occur gradually over the near to medium term. With that, I will now discuss our fourth quarter and full year financial results. For the fourth quarter of 2024, net revenues, operating income, and EPS on a GAAP basis were $975 million, $213 million, and $3.30 per share, respectively. For the full year, net revenues, operating income, and EPS on a GAAP basis were $3 billion, $527 million, and $9.08 per share, respectively. My comments from here will focus on non-GAAP metrics, which we believe are useful when evaluating our results. Our standard GAAP reporting and a reconciliation of GAAP to adjusted results can be found in our press release, which is on our website. Fourth quarter adjusted net revenues of $981 million increased 24% versus the fourth quarter of 2023. On a full-year basis, adjusted net revenues of $3 billion increased 23% compared to last year. Fourth quarter adjusted operating income of $218 million increased 76% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Adjusted earnings per share of…

Thank you. We will now conduct the question and answer portion of the conference. You are welcome to rejoin the queue for additional questions, time permitting. Again, in order to ask a question, please press the star key followed by one on your touch tone phone. Our first question is from Mike Brown with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Okay. Great. Good morning, Will. Thanks for taking my question. So Tim, I wanted to maybe start with a question on the comp ratio. So as you noted, you delivered almost 200 basis points of comp ratio improvement in 2024. You referenced an expectation for gradual improvement in the margins. Wanted to ask, you know, what's your expectation for that improvement in 2025? Would that level, that 200 basis point level, be what you would consider gradual improvement, or if the revenue environment is strong, could it actually be better than that? Thank you.

Hey. Yeah. Thanks for your question, Mike. Yeah. And as you did point out, we, you know, last year, we were at 67.6. This year, of course, it's 65.7. A 190 basis point improvement. I would characterize that as a meaningful improvement. As we mentioned in the past, we've talked about gradual improvement as our business continues to grow. And we think that was a reflection of the commentary we had provided and the results we were expecting. And I would say for 2025, though we don't give guidance, I would say we're striving hard to achieve meaningful improvement again this year. And as the year progresses, we'll have better visibility on that.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Brennan Hawken with UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning, John. Good morning, Tim. Thanks for taking my question. So appreciate the color, Tim, on the comp ratio right there. It sounds like you're striving to put up a similar level of leverage as you did in 2024. I know that there's all sorts of different factors that come into play, and recruiting and retention of talent can be a big one. Can you talk about what your expectations are for recruiting in the coming year? And last quarter, you spoke to the need to step up retention efforts and how that impacted the comp expense. Could you give us a little texture around what kind of impact we saw there and what we should expect into 2025?

Yeah. Sure. And thanks for the question, Brennan. Look, I think what and by the way, I again, I like to start with a little historical context, which is I think we've been pleased with the results of our recruiting effort over these last couple of years. Particularly, you know, in a competitive environment for talent, I think that we're working just as hard at it this year. We're still on plan and on pace to try to continue to work hard to build the business. We have a pipeline of candidates, but not unlike M&A transactions, until you know, you actually get it across the line, they're simply prospects. But we are in a number of discussions and working hard at it. And I think, you know, it does, of course, impact the compensation line. And what we're trying to do, you know, kind of said this in the past, is not trying to we're being careful not to sub-optimize, which is we're not focused on any single ratio, but instead on value creation. And you know, I think, you know, you could probably run the numbers, you know, about what the market is for hiring talent. You've seen what our results have been over the past two or three years. And then from there, you can extrapolate what the math is, but it does have an impact. But we're, you know, we're trying to balance the hiring and the costs associated with that hiring with the benefit of building our business and achieving improved growth.

What I would want to communicate is that our commitment to recruiting remains very robust. And we are going to continue to look for the highest quality people and continue to aggressively recruit them. I think that the recruiting environment remains very competitive, and I think that what we will continue to do is continue to add those high-quality people with the intention of really continuing to drive our growth. As you may know, I think we said this, but, you know, we've been ramping quite a bit. We have thirty senior managing directors ramping right now. We've brought in sixty new people and also promoted over the last three years. And so we have quite a bit of people coming in and really getting up to speed, but I would say that that's going to continue. The big difference, I think, is that I think the environment is very competitive. And I can't really give you a good sense as to how that will, you know, how that will play out in terms of numbers. But I think you can anticipate we're going to be performing at about the same level.

Yeah. And given the activity is going to pick up, I can't imagine it'll get easier to recruit. So thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Devin Ryan with Citizens JMP. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, John. Good morning, Tim. Question just on the M&A backdrop and specifically larger deals. Obviously, Evercore Inc. advised on, I think, three of the top seven transactions in 2024. So I'm just curious if you're seeing any shift in the market around the largest deals post-election rather to maybe smaller deals just given the changes at the FTC and expected changes in regulation and just how that's kind of evolving within Evercore Inc.'s pipeline specifically or whether there are other factors that may be driving that as well? Thanks.

Sure, Devin. We see continuing robust activity at the board level with management teams. I think that what we've said is that our backlog continues to strengthen. And I think that the large deals are a big part of the backlog. So I really believe that the environment is probably going to trend toward getting better. But clearly, we're all watching. It's too early to really predict. But I think most people would say, and I think we would agree with, that there will be a loosening up of some of the regulatory overlay, that there'll be more of a possibility. And I think that the clients that we're dealing with would really say the same thing. My own personal experience is that management teams are very much looking at doing things. And that really across the board, whether it's big strategics or whether it's sponsors, leadership teams are really looking at building the activity level. So I think we've remained very optimistic and believe there could be very much a build through the balance of the year.

Excellent. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take our next question from James Yaro with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I have a high-level one and then a related more nuanced question. John, maybe you could just speak to how much of an acceleration you're seeing in M&A today relative to the start of 2024 and perhaps which areas you're seeing activity improve most. And then zooming in, advisor results in the quarter evidence the momentum you spoke about in your prepared remarks. I just wanted to confirm whether there might be any or not any meaningful pull forward in M&A that contributed to the results this quarter.

Sure. In terms of pull forward, not a particularly large amount. I mean, we don't usually comment on pull forward. But generally speaking, this was really not out of the ordinary. In fact, I'd say it was on the smaller size. But let me just get to the acceleration. What we found is that really across the board, our businesses are really very active. And whereas I didn't, I would say that January didn't have a high volume of announcements coming out really on any side, whether it was the equity side or the merger side, the activity level remains very robust for us. And I don't think it's really slowing down. And I don't think that would change our view that we've articulated, which is that we see a continued build throughout the balance of this year. And it's really, and for our businesses, it's across the board. I think that virtually every one of our businesses is doing quite well now. And so I don't really, I wouldn't really say that there is a specific business which is doing better. In terms of sectors, you know, there are just a lot of activities throughout the sectors, whether it's on the technology side or the healthcare side or whether it's in general industrials, we're seeing activity across the board. So I don't think I'd make a distinction at this point.

That's very helpful. Thanks, John.

Thank you. We will take our next question from Brendan O'Brien with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I appreciate the point you made earlier on the sixty SMDs that you've added in the past three years. And that feels like to me that at least that you're this means there's a higher percentage of your current SMD base ramping today than at any point in your recent history, which would suggest significant embedded growth potential within the firm. However, despite that, your productivity is actually not that far off your long-term average. So I just was hoping you could give some context around how the percentage of your ramping SMDs today compares to, you know, your long-term average. And whether with this level of new joiners, you still think you can get back to, you know, or up to around the $20 million productivity level in the near to intermediate term.

Well, I would just say that first to start with, we do have a large number of people ramping. So much of that ramp has to do with the market and the opportunity that the market affords us. I'm very pleased with the new people we've added. In fact, there are some really interesting and exciting transactions in-house that have been generated by that group. And so I'm quite confident that that group is going to really start to drive productivity. And I think that really on all measures, the business is just getting more and more active and higher quality. The productivity is really a function as much of the level of revenue. Because really, the more active the market becomes, the more our people can generate. At this point, we're in the high teens now. And through the cycle, we've been able to get up to into the 20s. And I don't really see that there's that I would veer from that. I believe that that's where we could go. And I think that we actually have people in place that as the market recovers and announcements start to come in, that we're going to be driving in more revenue.

Yes. I'd say look, and I would agree with that. I think that if you think about this market recovery, and we've talked about the gradual build, but we think we're still in the relatively earlier stages of that build. And I think that that would augur well for what we hope will be continued improvement in the productivity ratio.

Thank you for taking my questions.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Aidan Hall with KBW. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Morning, John, Tim, Katy. Hope everyone's well. I just wanted to ask on the private capital advisory business. Obviously, Evercore Inc. is a market leader in the space, seen really strong results both in PCA and PFG. But there's increasing competition from the success of the secondaries market and broader industry volumes. You know, there's been some announcements of larger banks moving in with more targeted efforts in this area of advisory. Curious how you think about your competitive advantage in the space and ability to defend that market share.

Well, last year, we had record years in both of our private capital advisory businesses. And I think we are very optimistic really about each one of those businesses going forward. In terms of market position, we are competing very effectively for new business and clients, and I think each of the business leaders in those business units really have a great deal of optimism in terms of how they're going to continue to build the business. As you may have seen, you know, in terms of the continuation fund activity level is quite high right now, and I think that we're continuing to add new products, you know, in the PCA area, whether that's structured capital solutions or whether it's collateralized fund applications. And then in PFG, what you're really seeing is that the aperture is opening, and we're bringing in more business to actually raise money for different funds. And so our activity level in the private funds group is building. So I would say, yes, it's getting more competitive. It's very competitive. But right now, we're competing very well, and our business leaders feel really good about our market position.

Right. Now, I would just say that, you know, reiterate that last year was a record year for us. This year is starting strong, and we're pleased with what we see in the pipeline. And we believe we're in the midst of a secular growth trend in this area. And so notwithstanding the increased levels of competition, we still feel pretty good about the outlook.

Appreciate the color. Thanks for taking my question.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Ryan Kenny with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. So I just wanted to dig in on the pace of activity build in 2025 in both M&A and equity capital markets. You mentioned January announcements were a bit weaker for the industry, and you used the word gradual. So really want to understand whether recent market volatility around tariffs and AI developments had any impact on the first quarter? Any risks we should keep in mind as we think about that pace of build through 2025?

Recognizing that January has been a little bit slower, we continue to think there's going to be an actual build. And I don't think we're really coming off that. We don't at this point see that tariffs are impacting the activity level. Dialogues and really preparing for doing things, we see it both in the strategics as well as financial sponsors. So we see activity levels continuing to build. And, you know, the dialogue on deals is very relevant right now. In the equity capital market space, the same thing. We see a build, and we see that as the balance of the year goes forward, we think it's going to continue to improve, that that market's going to continue to improve. So I think generally we don't think there's any disruption. At this point, we think it's really going to continue on the pace that we've anticipated.

Thank you. And we will take a follow-up question from Devin Ryan with Citizens JMP. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. Just a question on capital. So obviously built $350 million of cash year over year. Appreciate still need to pay bonuses, and so that will bring cash back down. But if we make some assumptions there, it would still seem like there was some excess capital build over the course of the year. So just kind of curious whether there would be any reason why you'd want to hold kind of a higher proportion of cash as you grow or, you know, does that reflect maybe some of the uncertainties from 2024? Maybe it's just timing. So just love to get a sense on kind of how you're thinking about the excess capital position and kind of where you're entering 2025 because it would seem like it's up over 2024. Thanks.

Yeah. Sure. Sure, Devin. Look. We do think there's been a healthy build of cash. I'd kind of point out last year, we returned $591 million of capital to our shareholders through $147 million of or $144 million of dividends and $447 million in the form of share repurchases. In our last four years, we've repurchased a number of shares in each case greater than the number of RSUs granted during the comp period. And we certainly would expect that that will be the case again this year and that we would expect to repurchase a number of shares greater than that, which would, of course, be a use of some of that cash build-up.

Got it. Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Thank you. And we will take our next question from James Yaro with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking the follow-up. Just on restructuring, that appears to have been quite strong across the industry this quarter. Would love to get your perspective on whether that was the case for you. But then as you think about the outlook for restructuring, how do you think about the ability for that business to stay at these elevated levels or even potentially grow from here?

Well, last year, we had a very strong year in restructuring. I think it was our second-best year ever, and we continue to see activity level in that space to be very strong. And frankly, the business has changed a little bit in that it's not really just bankruptcies and restructuring companies. There's a lot of liability management that plays into it. And we've really structured ourselves so that we're talking to more clients about more critical aspects of their capital structure than ever before. So we see that the activity level is going to stay up for quite some time. I can't guarantee that it's always going to be at these levels, which are very healthy. But there's no question that I think what we're able to do, the service we're able to provide is more relevant and more expansive than it's been before, and our people are really marketing it that way.

Appreciate the color. Thanks, John.

Thank you. And this concludes today's Evercore Inc. Fourth Quarter 2024 and Full Year Earnings Call. You may now disconnect.