Perella Weinberg Partners

Good morning everyone and welcome to the Pirello Weinberg Partners second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Currently all callers have been placed in a listen only mode and following management's prepared remarks the call will be open for your questions. If you would like to ask a question at that time please press star 1 on your telephone and if you need to remove yourself from the queue you can do so by pressing star 2. At any time if you should need operator assistance press star 0 and please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to Taylor Reinhart, Head of Communications and Marketing. Ms. Reinhart, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome all. Joining me today are Andrew Bednar, Chief Executive Officer, and Alex Gottschalk, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to note that this call may contain forward-looking statements, including Cruella Weinberg's expectations of future financial and business performance and conditions and industry outlooks. 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 Perel Weinberg'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. Perrella Weinberg 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 Andrew Bednar to discuss our results.

Thank you, Taylor, and good morning. Today, we reported second quarter revenues of $155 million and first half revenues of $367 million. While we experienced some variance in reported results this past quarter, the leading indicators in our business, specifically our active engagement count and our gross revenue pipeline, are at peak levels. Our first half revenues were flat year over year, though with a notable difference in composition. In the first six months of 2024, we had two transactions account for over 35% of revenue, which contributed to our record second quarter last year. In the first half of 2025, our business broadened out by industry, product, and geography, and we recorded a higher average fee per engagement. These are encouraging trends reflecting improved client targeting, prudent business selection, and the overall value add we deliver to our clients. Without a doubt, we ended the quarter in a better environment than we experienced in April and May. Our teams are extremely busy with the level of client dialogue and related mandates growing, though conversion into announcements, especially for large transactions, has been taking longer. Today, we're still seeing some transactions sit on the edge of announcement due to a variety of factors, some financing challenges, valuation gaps between buyers and sellers, or in certain industries, operating weakness due to a more cautious consumer. That said, with many active mandates currently in the red zone, we are confident that a broader acceleration in announcements is coming. We are business builders no matter the environment. And to that end, we have made significant investments in our senior talent through both hiring and promotion. And we have more than made up for what I noted last year was a gap in senior hiring. Between now and year end, we have six partners and three managing directors joining the firm with expertise, including software, healthcare services, consumer and retail, insurance distribution, UK takeovers, machinery and capital goods, and FinTech. In July, we promoted six managing directors to partner. for each a hard-earned and very deserving recognition of the contributions they've made to our business. So, by year end, 12 new partners and nine new managing directors will be on our platform, representing our best hiring year on record since entering the public markets. This creates a significant source of future revenue and demonstrates that Perella Weinberg continues to be a destination of choice for top-tier talent across the industry. We also significantly expanded our capabilities with today's announced acquisition of Devon Park Advisors, a premier private funds advisory firm with specific expertise in GP-led secondaries. This acquisition creates our private funds advisory business, establishes our position in a large and fast-growing segment of the market, and enables us to expand our coverage of alternative asset managers, including private equity, private credit, infrastructure, venture, and real estate. We've noted in the past that financial sponsors in particular were historically underrepresented in our client base and in our revenue. This transaction changes our mix overnight. We're excited to welcome to our firm a group of talented new colleagues from Devon Park, including a partner and two managing directors. I've said in the past that we would consider M&A to advance our growth objectives if the transaction is compelling. not only financially, but strategically and culturally as well. And that is what we have with Devon Park. We expect that the addition of Devon Park will contribute to our financial performance immediately upon closing, and looking ahead, will meaningfully benefit all of our stakeholders, our clients, our teams, and our shareholders. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Alex to review our financial results and capital management in more detail.