Evercore Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Evercore's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Today's call is scheduled to last about one hour, including remarks by Evercore management and the question and answer session. In order to ask a question, please press the star key followed by the number one on your touchtone phone at any time. I will now turn the call over to Katie Haber, Managing Director of Investor Relations at Evercore. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Evercore's first quarter 2025 financial results conference call. I'm Katie Haber, Evercore's head of Investor Relations. 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 up the call for questions. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing Evercore's first quarter 2025 financial results. Our discussion of our results today is complimentary 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 30 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 these statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, those discussed in Evercourse 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. In our presentation today, unless otherwise indicated, we will be discussing adjusted 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 Evercourse performance on an annual basis. As we have 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, Katie, and good morning, everyone. Before we turn to the quarter, I want to first address the current environment. As a result of heightened geopolitical and trade tensions, we are experiencing increased volatility in global financial and asset markets. This reflects growing concerns about inflation, interest rates, and the global and domestic economic outlook. While there are many unanswered questions at this time, the Evercore of today is far better positioned than Evercore in the past. Our diversified platform across geographies, sectors, products, client types, and deal sizes enables us to perform across varied market environments. Our global M&A advisory franchise has proven resilient through different markets. In addition, our capabilities in liability management and restructuring, private capital advisory and fundraising, debt capital markets advisory, equity underwriting, equity research, and sales and trading continue to contribute meaningfully amid shifting market conditions. We are built to deliver for clients in all environments, including ones like this. In challenging markets, our ability to provide thoughtful, strategic, and financial advice is more important than ever. Based on what we see today, market complexity has prompted greater caution and has weighed on CEO and board confidence levels and, in turn, has impacted the broader transaction environment. We expect transaction levels to pick up once there is greater clarity and stability in the macroeconomic backdrop and financial markets. Client dialogues remain active and constructive, supporting our robust backlogs and new engagement letter signings, and there is a high degree of pent-up demand to transact among both strategic and sponsor clients. While the timing and shape of the market recovery is uncertain at this time, we will continue to operate with the same long-term, client-centric focus that has always defined Evercore. As we've discussed on prior calls, we continue to believe in our business model and expect to invest in talent through the cycle. In the first quarter, two senior managing directors have joined our investment banking practice, both of whom were announced in 2024. And four additional investment banking SMDs have committed to join our franchise, three of whom will be in our industrials, healthcare, and private capital advisory practices, and one in Europe. Also, earlier this month, we announced that Bill Burns, former director of the CIA, will be joining Evercore in June as a senior advisor with a focus on global affairs. In addition to our externally hired SMDs, we started the year with a class of 11 promoted investment banking SMDs and an additional four in other areas of the firm. Developing our internal talent has always been a core priority for us. Now, let me briefly discuss the quarter. We delivered solid year-over-year growth across nearly all areas of the firm, reflecting the strength of our diversified revenue base. In the first quarter, more than 50% of total Evercore revenues were from non-M&A sources. In advisory, we've advised on a number of notable and complex transactions in the quarter, including Calpine on its sale to Constellation Energy for $29.1 billion, which is one of the largest transactions so far this year, and Ampere on its $6.5 billion sale to SoftBank. And momentum has carried into April, with several significant transactions announced in recent weeks, including advising the shareholders of Colonial Enterprises on its $9 billion sale to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, Woodside Energy on its $5.7 billion sale of a 40% interest in Louisiana LNG infrastructure to Stone Peak, Dotmatics on its $5.1 billion sale to Siemens, and EQT on the minority stake sale of IFS for over 15 billion euros. Turning to financial sponsors, industry-wide global volumes increased in the first quarter compared to the prior year, though the number of transactions declined due to the recent macroeconomic and market headwinds. Sponsor deal activity remains selective, dependent on asset quality and sector. That said, our sponsors team has meaningfully expanded its global client base and continues to see strong dialogue levels. Our strategic defense and shareholder advisory group remains busy as the number of activist campaigns hit new records last quarter. Our liability management and restructuring group continues to see strong activity in the quarter, driven in part by private equity-led liability management situations. Currently, we are focused on sectors expected to be impacted by newly announced tariffs. Our team continues to collaborate closely across the firm to support clients as they navigate increased uncertainty. Our industry-leading private capital advisory group had a record first quarter. We continue to lead in GP-led continuation vehicles, which remain the primary revenue driver for PCA. We also achieved a record quarter in LP secondaries and made significant progress in our securitized capital solutions business. Our private funds group continues to perform well as it broadens its client base. Underwriting had a strong first quarter with issuance activity showing solid momentum compared to historical periods. As we've experienced a slowdown in underwriting in the first few weeks of the quarter, we note that market conditions for this business can shift quickly in either direction. Our equities franchise had its strongest first quarter since the first quarter of 2020, driven by market volatility and increased trading volumes. Our market-leading macro and sector research teams have been highly engaged throughout the recent market volatility, and together with sales and trading, are supporting our institutional clients as they navigate a rapidly evolving environment. Lastly, wealth management delivered a solid quarter, achieving net new business amid a volatile environment. Before I turn it over to Tim to discuss the financial results, I want to wrap up with a few points. As we move through this period, we will continue to focus on long-term value creation for our clients and shareholders. Our capital return philosophy has not changed, and we have returned a record amount of capital to our shareholders in the quarter. We remain optimistic about our prospects over the medium and long term and are committed to building our firm across the cycle. Historically, we've emerged from challenging periods stronger than when we entered them, and we believe we have the opportunity to do so again. And with that, let me turn it over to Tim.