Perella Weinberg Partners

Good morning and welcome to the Perrella-Weinberg Partners first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. During today's discussion, all callers will be placed in listen-only mode and should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. Following management's prepared remarks, the conference call will be open for questions from the research community. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touchstone phone to withdraw your question, please press star then two. This conference call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Taylor Reinhart, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome to our first quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me today are Peter Weinberg, Chief Executive Officer, and Gary Barancic, Chief Financial Officer. A replay of this call will be available through the investor's page of the company's website approximately two hours following the conclusion of this live broadcast through May 19, 2022. For those who listened to the rebroadcast of this presentation, we remind you that the remarks made herein are as of today, May 5, 2022, and have not been updated subsequent to the initial earnings call. Before we begin, I'd like to note that this call may contain forward-looking statements including PWP's expectations of future financial and business performance and conditions in industry outlook. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements and are not guarantees of future events or performance. Please refer to PWP's most recent SEC filings for discussion of certain of these risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations, and the firm undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. During the call, there will also be a discussion of some metrics, which are non-GAAP financial measures, which management believes are relevant in assessing the financial performance of the business. CWP has reconciled these items to the most comparable GAAP measures in the press release filed with today's Form 8K, which can be found on the company's website. I will now turn the call over to Peter Weinberg to discuss our results.

Thank you, Taylor. Good morning and thank you all for joining us for our first quarter 2022 earnings call. Gary and I are going to provide brief prepared remarks and then we will open the line for questions. Our first quarter results of 152 million in revenues represented our second highest first quarter revenues. And while modestly below our record level achieved a year earlier, far exceeded every other first quarter in the firm's history. Our level of client dialogue and client touchpoints are higher today than ever before as we continue to execute against our growth plan. Our results were supported by activity across our platform with notable contribution from our European business, which turned in another record revenue quarter, significantly exceeding the prior year period notwithstanding strong 2021 performance. We have invested heavily in European talent over the past few years, and we are seeing good return on those investments. From a sector and product standpoint, we saw strength in our industrials, energy, and healthcare groups. In addition, our first quarter results included an increased contribution from our restructuring and liability management business, including the contribution of a very sizable fee event in the quarter. Balance sheet impacts from rising rates and macroeconomic headwinds are spurring a moderate pickup in demand for these services, but barring further deterioration in the market, we do not expect a material rise in traditional restructuring activity for the balance of 2022. We are now seeing an environment going forward where two forces are pulling at one another. The factors that drove the high level of activity in 2021 are still very much in place, and the need for high-quality independent advice is, if anything, elevated. That said, we're in a very tough macroeconomic environment, and we do not see that changing anytime soon. And while these dynamics will continue to affect M&A and financing volumes in the short term, an inflection point will come just as it did in March of 2009 and May of 2020. Market volatility translates into greater volatility to our top line, particularly while we are building scale. We experienced this to the upside with a very strong first and second quarters in 2021, and now based on what we are currently seeing, we expect revenue for the second quarter to be well below our first quarter results. Although the current environment makes it more difficult to predict when the current high level of activity will translate into revenue, we expect a stronger second half of the year than the first half, even given the current macro economic backdrop. As I've noted before, our business will experience variability in revenue on a quarter-to-quarter basis, but we manage the business with the long-term objective of sustained investment and growth through cycles. Even in the current environment, we are in active dialogues to add accretive senior talent to continue to grow our coverage footprint. Year to date, we have promoted or hired four partners to our platform and look forward to another partner joining the firm in June. This new partner will bolster our industrials practice and expand our energy transition effort, a topic relevant to our clients across industries. We will continue to add to our partner ranks in carefully determined positions in industry groups, products, and regions. Some of our recent growth areas, notably tech and fintech, as well as our private capital markets business have benefited from the addition of revenue generating managing directors who represent strong client leadership. While we continue to view productivity per partner as the most relevant indicator of our business performance on a per head basis, we are encouraged by this trend, are continuing to hire behind it, and we look forward to the impact that these individuals will have on our newer investment areas. In our 16 year history, we have found times of uncertainty and volatility advantageous to progressing our firm and creating meaningful value. And we look forward to once again, capitalizing on opportunities to drive growth. We have a strong balance sheet with no debt, which we will use opportunistically. Our platform is diversified across product offerings and our restructuring liability management and financial advisory businesses. provide for countercyclical revenue streams. The fundamental growth opportunity for our business is unchanged. The benefit of our recent investments has yet to be fully realized, and we are continuing to execute against our strategic initiatives. We remain extremely confident in our future growth prospects. On that note, Gary, I will turn it over to you.